


flowers are for the dead

by PostNox



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ben solo did nothing wrong, Dark Rey (Star Wars), F/M, Fix-It, I WILL AVENGE YOU, Jealous Ben Solo, Post-Canon, TROS spoiler, ben-bde-solo, but later he's like, goddamn right tionne solusar is going to solve everything, he has a single(1) braincell when it comes to love, holocron hunting, honestly just a therapy fic, nfwmb mood, palpatine is palpadead, ransolm casterfo is a hottie, wait she's my dyad
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-23
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21914020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostNox/pseuds/PostNox
Summary: He had once believed joy was a weakness, a distraction from a greater cause, but he's never felt strength like this before. The light, once a distant starlight, fully submerges him now.Love, he thinks, this is what it feels like to be lovedOR, in which;Rey inherited more than just force lightning from her grandfather, Ben Solo raises from the dead faster than Jesus, and Poe definitely, definitely is the boss man in charge
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 16
Kudos: 97





	1. Chapter 1

It's there, cradling her broken body, that he finally understands that, while light calls to him, he cannot fully answer. In order to put aside ones own feelings for the greater good, this fervor shouldn't exist. And it was roaring in his veins, a throbbing, angry, pulse in his temple, a tremble in his hands. 

This inferno, which was only a glimmer in Kylo Ren, is a living beast in Ben Solo. 

None of his masters had prepared him for this. There was no peace and there was no strength within him as he dragged Rey off of the floor and into his arms. She was gone. Her entire being was void and empty and it drove a certain desperation in him. This isn't how it was suppose to end. He summons a breath and closes his eyes. The force, which hummed in an absolute clarity that he hadn't experience since he was an apprentice, was also a consuming thing. He empties himself into it, on the tether that holds all together, letting the energy around him absorb and disperse. Behind it, there is fear and anguish that he is unable to hold back, so instead he allows it. He does not let it hold him back anymore. 

_Balance_ , he thinks to himself. 

His hand is covered by something warm, jerking him back into the ruined temple. It's her eyes that he sees first, blinking and alive, so very alive. She says his name and for once, he breaks, an ardent symphony from her lips and belonging to him, and only him. This name has never meant anything like it does right now and he doesn't have any longer to fully digest it. 

Warm lips and her thumb brushing from the corner of his mouth to his jawline. He feels his entire face tremble as her eyes, now wide and rich and awake, gaze back into his. He relishes it. An out pour of affection, so strong that he isn't sure how to contain it or express it, but he knows if he does neither he will erupt. He accepts her as she leans in by wrapping an arm around her frame, her skin growing warmer as he pulls her closer. He had once believed joy was a weakness, a distraction from a greater cause, but he's never felt strength like this before. The light, once a distant starlight, fully submerges him now.

 _Love_ , he concludes, _this is what it feels like to be loved_.

Then coldness causes him to falter, it's starting to get dark and his eyes are heaving and he's falling, but he knows why.

Ben closes his eyes and accepts the inevitable. 

Coolness seeps into his pores and his skin becomes numb, if the force is physically pulling him away he doesn't feel it. There is a quiet parting that soothes his frantic heart into a slower motion. It builds gently and he is unable to be afraid of it either. He thinks he is fading and-

The coldness is pouring over him in a wild wave and filling his lungs full until he jolts up and tries desperately to cough up water that must be choking him. There is a sharp, acute pain, in his leg as he pushes himself upward which makes him fall back down. Wheezing for air, he somehow manages to lift his head and look up at the girl, who is looking down on him. She is holding on to his hand, like he had asked so many times for, gripping it like the last solid object in the world.

"He made this mistake before and he didn't remember. It was you who told me I had all his powers, wasn't it?" She does not speak, but her voice is clear in his head. Her eyes are shining and wet, but there is something sinister as well behind them. "He said I would ascend, if I killed him. He was right."

The shock of life flooding back into his system is already distracting enough, but her words get his attention. Some other voice, deep down, says they're all wrong. The thought is completely lost as he gags. He sputters again against a reflex in his chest and convulses on his own breath, which taste stale and rotting. Drained entirely of consciousness, she collapses onto the ground.

He still can't take a full breath, but he drags himself up and over her, both hands pressing along her neck and chest to search for that familiar beat. For a panicked second, he is enraged because this life was not hers to refuse and if she had died again, he wasn't sure if he was strong enough to give it back. Typical, she was always so stubborn and they would be up all night trying to resurrect the other if this continued. When he finds it, slow and methodical on the end of her jaw line, he holds it. Just for reassurances.

He sputters again, but it's half relief, half a sob, instead of the sensation of drowning. He tries to find his legs again. They wobble beneath him, but they hold him upright. Only then does he turn to the throne where Palpatine sat, he wasn't sure what happened, but it wasn't there anymore. There is nothing, but broken stone and crumbled gods around them.

He turns down to look at Rey who is blissfully unaware of everything around her.

"You," He says slowly "need to teach me how to do that." 

xxx

They return to Ajan Kloss, which is as vibrant and alive as they had left it. Poe Dameron walks slowly out of the tent where General Leia Organa's body was laid and was now gone. Finn is waiting, sitting on the edge of a metal trunk with his head between his hands. He looks up as Poe approaches, but returns to the position when Poe sits next to him.

There is too much loss here. People are still celebrating all around them, but the absence of the ones who weren't there is a heavy burden. He had been watching the sky, just in case someone just hadn't landed yet. So far, it's been a complete waste of time, Her absence is palpable. There is something gone in him that he wasn't fully aware even existed until it wasn't there. Anger is the only thing that can breath and survive in the empty space.

Through the crowd, which hasn't lessen in volume, there is a familiar distressed sound that makes Poe and Finn look up at the same time.

BB-8 zooms towards Poe, crashing into his legs and beeping frantically.

Poe solemn expression transforms into disbelief. "Luke's X-wing is doing what?"

Finn sits upright, but the small flicker of hope immediately is extinguish. 

"No, just show me." Poe interrupts the droid's mindless shrieking and they both disappear into the crowd towards the flat expansion on the outskirts of the Cathedral Fig grove where the communication terminals were located.

Finn is slow to rise, but quick to follow the two through the crowd. He doesn't recognize the boy who sits in front of terminal and shakes at finger at the screen.

"I thought it was another survivor who hadn't caught up, but it's definitely coming from Luke Skywalker's X-wing." The intel analysis explains to Poe.

"It's heading here." Poe says unsure, squinting at the fogged screen. "That doesn't make any sense."

"It's a trap." Finn says affirmatively, there is a twinge of irritation behind it. "We have to go intercept before it gets too close."

Poe glares at the screen, his grip tightens around the headrest of the intel analysis's chair, ignoring even when the boy shifts away and looks around with great concern, like he was unsure how to react to the growing tension.

"What if-" Poe starts.

"I felt her die, Poe. She's gone." Finn snap, his hands clenching at his sides. He wasn't ready to talk about this, not like this. "And now someone stole her ship and trying to use her to get to us? Is that what you want Poe, huh?"

"You don't have to go."

"Oh no, you're not going without me"

There's a loud whistle that makes both of them jump. Finn and Poe turn towards Rose, who had been standing there for some time now. 

"You're all forgetting something pretty important." She says imprudently. She turns to Finn, who's still eyeing the screen with distrust. "It means someone wasn't aboard those Star Destroyers. Any wild guess who that might be?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben continues to stare at Poe, but his eyes dart away momentarily as they carry Rey away.
> 
> Poe studies the scene in front of him. "What brings you to these parts?" 

She keeps passing out. 

Ben sees the jungle planet and sends out the distress signal, as they had agreed to earlier, that will alert the resistance of their presence and the next part was still up in the air. He hoped she was lucid enough to get the right planet, because if not, this might be a disaster. 

Well, less of a disaster than it was already turning out to be. Although, considering the circumstances, it could be a lot worse. 

"Are you still there?" He calls back to Rey as soon as his comm unit started blinking with an incoming transmission. She doesn't stir. 

He gives a hard stare at the comm unit and elects to ignore it. It would be a sure way of getting them blown into the sky if they got a whiff that who was aboard and flying straight for them. He figures that, this way, there odds are at least fifty-fifty.

He nudges forward on the thruster and speeds onward. 

XXX

  
The rogue X-wing arrives the second Poe closes the hatch to his own T-70 Starfighter. 

Scrambling, he all but throws himself out of the cockpit and back onto the ground, a feat more difficult with a broken arm. 

The entire base, which was loud enough to be unable to hear ones own thoughts just a minute ago, is stricken dead silent as Kylo Ren clamors out of the X-wing. Poe would have blasted him out of the sky if his arm wasn't tied up, but by the makers will, its a good thing in the end. 

Ren pulls up someone behind the pilots seat and holds her in his arms, her midsection in the crossfires of where Poe guesses his heart would be and where he was aiming a partial beam towards. Ren leaps down onto the ground, absorbing most of the impact on his heels. Rey's name is called somewhere behind Poe, he thinks it might be Finn, but he's too preoccupied to give it too much thought. 

For Poe to say that he was being torn between two feelings would be an understatement. His initial emotion is panic, the sight of Rey, who is very much alive despite everything, is within arms reach and he has to stop himself when he starts to sprint towards her. The second emotion is rage, she is barely lucid and terribly feeble. Which makes the last part the most confusing of all. Kylo Ren is all but lifting her up, his arm wrapped around her ribs to pull her towards him so that she can stumble forward along with him. 

Frankly, it's too much to take in all in one moment. Poe gets that and its why he completely understands why Finn reacts the way he does, which was to run past Poe and straight towards the two descending figures. 

Kylo Ren's expression is dark, but he doesn't react other than that when Finn steps to the opposite side of the slumped over girl and reaches around her. Poe breaths out a sigh of relief when Ren releases her and allows Finn to help her instead. He reaches them himself only a second later and mirrors Finn hold on Rey on the opposite side in order to support her. As soon as Poe had a grip on her, suddenly, her weight shifts and she is _falling_ towards Poe, causing him to stumble down on a knee as he tries his damnedest to hold her up. The moment he gets her upright again, he looks to her opposite side where Finn was, or more accurately, where he had been only a second ago. 

A few in the crowd of resistances fighters, most who were stunned into statues during the chaos unfolding, who finally had snapped back into reality and were rushing towards them. This is the first thing Poe notices. With an enormous amount of effort, he turns his head the other way and sees Finn, frozen in place with a grimace of fury plastered across his face. Ren looks entirely too calm with his palm raised casually towards Finn.

The couple of pilots who had sprinted across to aid their general simultaneously raised their blasters towards Ren. Dropping his hand, Ren stared at Poe, waiting for him to make the next move. 

"Can someone, please, help me here first? Maker." Poe snaps out. Rey's head is slumped over on his shoulder and the dead body weight is not something to disregard. Not to mention, Poe has a bad shoulder that is current trapped in a sling, making it nearly impossible to hold her for much longer.

Two of the officers rush over in response and Rey is lifted off of him. They both grab under her knees and pull her up so that they can carry her. somewhere in the scuffle she seemed to have passed out. Without needing to be told, they jog her towards the direction of the infirmary. Ben continues to stare at Poe, but his eyes dart away momentarily as they carry Rey away.

Poe studies the scene in front of him. "What brings you to these parts?" 

Ren sweeps the crowd with his eyes, his posture stiffening upright. "I think it would be better if we sat down and discussed this."

"I agree." Poe nods. "So sit down." 

Ben's eye twitches and he looks mildly annoyed at the request. He kneels and sits on top of his legs anyways, his arms held outward. Beaumont steps forward and locks manacles around his wrist. 

Poe waits until Beaumont has steps back and gives him a thumbs up before stuns Ren, knocking him out cold. 

XXX

Rey awakes in a burst of hysteria, her breath irregular and a struggle. 

A movement in her peripheral and a sound of crashing or falling makes her snap her next around. She winces at the movement, too quick for the soreness that is throbbing her entire body. It's all forgotten not even a moment later. 

She can barely see Finn's face before he is over her, clutching on to her like his lifeline. She grips him back with as much fierceness as she can manage. 

She suddenly sees lightning, crackling through the skies, ships falling, all her friends falling, down into the barren landscapes of Exegol. _No_. She forces the image away because Finn is here and he's in front of her. The next question she wants to ask is stuck in the back of her throat. 

"Poe?" Her voice is cracked and dry. 

He nods his head up and down vigorously. "He's fine. Well, he's alive." He presses his lips together in a tight line. "He's busy at the moment, but he'll be back."

She nods, accepting this answer. "Where is Ben?"

Finn scoffs. "He's busy too."

She can't hide the initial alarm at his answer, but is quick to glower at his reaction. "Take me."

"No." He refutes. "You're on bed rest. You were half alive when they dragged you in here."

"Take. Me." She says more firmly, already moving to get down from the bed. She doesn't get far, however, and he has to help her when her leg wobbles and collapse immediately when she tries to stand up. She immediately regrets trusting her legs to stay steady, but she feels frustrated all the same.

Finn's comlink crackles into life and he groans at the timing. Poe's voice is barely distinguishable. "Finn, status report?" 

As soon as Finn holds down the button, Rey immediately starts talking over him until they're both shouting over each other until Finn gives up and releases the mic.

There is a silence before the comlink sparks back to life. "Uh roger that." 

They glare at each other. 

"I thought you were dead." He breaks, he means it at a low blow because he can't get himself to care at the moment. He doesn't finish his next thought, but he wants to, so badly. 

"I did die." Her nose scrunches and mouth twists into something sore. Her eyes begin to gloss over and tears fall freely down her checks, she visibly fights a tremble in her chin. 

This isn't how she wants to reunite with her friends, with bitterness and anger. It's happening anyways and she is absolutely mortified as she wipes away at the wetness on her face. She isn't being fair. Finn wasn't there, he couldn't have know what had happened, what she went through. Before she can say she's sorry, there is something in the corner of her eye that steals the thought away.

Poe chooses this moment to make his appearance. He only evaluates the events unfolding in the room for a minute before he decides that, whatever has happened, it can wait and elopes Rey in an embrace. 

XXX

Ben wakes to the inside of a familiar ship and a hammering in his skull. It takes too much effort to lift his head and it's all for nothing, the agony all but allowing him to pass out again. He stares upward at the ceiling of the Millennium Falcon. 

His body had been through too much in the last standard day. 

It's the manacles, which restrain any movement when he tries to raise his right hand over his eyes to block out the light, that remind him of what he was doing in this heap of space trash in the first place. And she's not there with him. Of course, he is a prisoner and she is a patient. To be chained up in this ship must be some form of punishment and a good one, he had to admit. In any case, the whole encounter has actually gone remarkable well.

He doesn't even need to look up to see the paling face of a resistance fighter, who had been watching him carefully on the opposite side of the room. He can feel the tension with his eyes closed. 

"I think you should go tell the pilot that I'm awake." Ben mumbles, he can't resist the smirk that overtakes his face. "I promise, I won't move a muscle."

An anxious voice finally emerges. "Poe? Come in Poe?" 

"Go ahead for Poe." A static voice responds. 

"I think you should get up here." There's a pause. "He's awake." 

XXX

Poe drops his hand and disposes his comlink in his pocket. Rey stares daggers at him, but Poe still refuses to met her gaze. She says his name, but he still pretends that she is not there, even though he was embracing her just a minute ago. He had even been upset enough to tear up, Rey could see it through her own waterworks. 

Instead, he is in a stare off with Finn and neither of them are blinking. 

Finn turns his head suddenly at her, his expression like he had forgotten she was there and he was seeing her for the first time again. "You said you did die, what did you mean by that?"

She pinches the root of her nose and closes her eyes. There is a flash and she remembers closing her eyes for what should have been the last time, the black consuming her from inside out until she was nothing and everything, but not fading either. She recollects desperately clawing for consciousness. Immediately, she knows Finn can feel it too. He shudders in response as she recalls her last breath. Then, there was warmth. In her memory, she opens her eyes and there is Ben.

Finn inhales sharply and he pales slightly. She can feel him see it all.

Her legs are barely cooperative, but she can't get herself to care. Finn closes most of the distance between them before she can fall, but she manages to take a few shaky steps towards him. She grabs his arms and stares at him, trying to convey all the understanding and acceptance that she can muster. 

"So that's what you were going to tell me."


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "What happened to my ship?" Ben asks, an odd tone behind it, however she didn't hear any malice in it. She grimaces anyways, remembering the inferno that she had made of the Tie whisper and the chars that had become of it. All that remained were bones of scrap metal by the time she was done with it.
> 
> "I crashed it."
> 
> His expression doesn't change, but she can feel his mind mulling over her response. 
> 
> "You crashed it." He says impassively. 
> 
> "On Luke's island." She adds quickly. "I don't believe it's salvageable."
> 
> "I see." He nods slowly, understandingly. "Noted." 

Poe stands at a distance from the detainee, an brigade of armed resistance soldiers at his flank. 

They had allowed him to move freely in the cargo hold of the Falcon, a detail that had been strategically left out from the original plan in the meeting following the capture of Kylo Ren, or rather his surrender, a correction made to Finn's tirade when resistance leadership had gather to discuss the fate of the former Supreme Leader. It had been a test and Ren must have some idea to this because he was laying down in the thin mattress provided to him, a leg dangling off the end. He didn't even look up as the cargo door closed.

"You don't have any family here anymore, they're all gone." He announces, cutting right to the chase. 

Ren opens his eyes and stares up at the rafters, but Poe thought he could see a glint of sorrow from his side profile, only from the twitch of his nose. Undeserving in his humble opinion, even if it was his mother. "Yeah, I heard."

"No slip ups." Poe reiterates. "If you screw up, you're gone. There is no one left to protect you."

Ben sits up finally, gauging the seriousness of this conversation. He knew that this would not be his official verdict in his future, but it was a chance none the less. "And the terms of this home detention?" 

Poe holds up a metal band, similar to a single manacle. For once, he is smiling and Ben feels his eye twitch involuntarily. 

"This is actually a First Order device, so I'm assuming you know what it is and how it works."

Ben holds out his arm and waits. The device is handed off to a resistance fighter who is followed by another soldier that points his blaster at Ben as the two approach. The women snaps the device around Ben's outstretch wrist and backs up hurriedly.

"Who is my handler then, just so I can avoid going out of range and electrify my brains out." Ben twists his arm to check that the wrist monitor had locked properly. The seamless edges confirmed it had, much to his dismay.

Poe holds up a rectangular device that blinks green. 

"We're going to have a lot of time to know each other."

XXX

In the span of three days, the celebrations at the forest planet had not ceased in volume, in fact, it seemed to only lessen in moderation. This base had been an entire different atmosphere and although Rey knew that she should begrudge them for it, she can't get herself to relax in this place. There are several new ships littered throughout the landing deck, New political alliances were being built overnight and the ones who had answered the call during the battle of Exegol were being reward for their bravery. Jessika Pava clasps Rey on the shoulder as she passes by, her own cheeks rosy from festivities.

"Generals." She nods at Poe and Finn as she passes.

Rey cocks her head and scrutinizes them, the gears visibly turning and Finn must see that she's choosing her words carefully. 

"Generals." She states. 

The corner of his mouth drug up in a tight smirk and he narrows his eyes, looking entirely smug. "It sounds even better, coming from you."

Her eyes widen and then narrow, she looked back and forth from Poe to Finn. "The war is over, boys."

"Not quite." Poe raises his hand and holds his palm, facing upward. He motions to the masses of people all around them. "We still have to mop up the remaining members of First Order sympathizers, uprisings that are bound to happen, and not to mention, the political minefield of post war efforts. War is never really over anyways."

"Is that all?" 

"Eventually." Finn shrugged. "Not today. Today is for resting and catching up. I have it on good authority that a bottle of Soulean brandy is floating around somewhere."

Rey wrinkles her nose. "You mean Jet juice. I think I'll pass."

"Well yes, there is plenty of that around here as well." Finn rolls his eyes. He had enough Jet juice for a lifetime after a night with Poe, who had been outraged to find out Finn had never tried any as a stormtrooper. They cheered every drink in a salute to freedom. After a terrible morning afterwards, Finn begrudgingly decided it probably had been for the best after all. 

"Enough! It's time to celebrate, the wicked witch is dead!" Poe wrapped an arm around each of his comrades, pulling them forward so all their foreheads were touching. He pecked a kiss on each of their foreheads, earning him groans and both Finn and Rey trying earnestly to pull away. Poe releases them and wanders away, marching onward in focused determination. "D'Acy? I see you! Where is your wife? She has my bottle, don't think I didn't notice!"

Rey pulls Finn towards her and embraces him. She feels his chin rest on her shoulder and his arms constrict in response. 

"Leia." She mumbles. She felt her pass in the worst way possible. In her grief and horror -having stabbed Ren with his own saber not even a second later, and the slow realization that she allowed herself to succumb that boundary- she had not let herself mourn her master. 

"She would be proud, of all of us." Finn says soothingly. He sniffs and allows himself to slump against her. "I miss her." Then he pushes himself against her shoulder and holds her far enough away so that he can look at her. "You owe him nothing. I don't care what he did, it's the least he could do after the hell he put you through. Please, let us deal with him, just until we can get a better hold on him."

A protest bubbles up, but Rey can see through Finn's facade. He is scared for her. She had prided herself in being forthright, but she pushes it away. "For now."

Finn smiles genuinely and gives her shoulders a hard squeeze before releasing her. From the corner of her eye, Rey can feel Rose darting glances at the pair. She tits her head in the direction of the girl and returns that knowing look. "I think someone wants to talk to you."

Finn takes his leave, not before making a face at her, however, and he's gone. 

Rey searches for Poe immediately in the crowd, finding him easily as he was the only figure on top of a chair, pouring the contents of a dark glass bottle into a funnel, attached to a hose, that is attached to something else, Rey can't see past the crowd encircled around. 

Poe leaps down after a cheer from the crowd, tossing the bottle deep into the alcove of trees. He almost immediately meets her gaze, as thought he felt her eyes on him and acts as though he instantly regrets it, rerouting his path entirely away from her. She hunts him down, winding tactfully until she grabs the collar of his jacket. 

He swings around, an ear to ear grin, trying to mask the panic that radiates from him. 

"Hey Rey-"

"Save it, Dameron." Rey snaps heatedly. 

His face morphed to a blank slate. "Don't ask me."

"I'm not asking you."

Poe's jaw clenches and it seems that he evaluates his options, his finger tapping against the side of his leg. He breaths in deeply and tucks his chin down, glaring at her while he shakes his head. Then, his hand snaps up, his fist clenched and he shakes his index finger at her. "Nobody." He hisses. "Not a single person knows about this."

Rey relaxes and straighten her shoulders. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

XXX

She stalks into the cargo hold and swings a hand from the center of her body, outward. The door slams shut simultaneously. Poe, who barely makes it inside before getting sliced in half, yelps out in alarm and murmurs out a string of curses at her. 

She ignores him entirely, only looking ahead at the man ahead of her. It takes her a second to find him, even in the empty space of the cargo hold. The bareness of the room was actually more of a distraction and perhaps because she was already angry at Poe, she reminded herself to ask him what he had done with all her stuff. Ben was seated on a metal cot that was scooted flush against the wall so he could lean against siding of the Falcon. It seemed to take Ben a moment to evaluate the situation fully as well. 

But only for a second, he looked bored as she slammed the door behind her. She saw the exact moment the gears clicked in his head and he seemed to move even slower when recognition flickered in his eyes. He jerked forward and sat upright on the cot and froze. 

His face is littered with half healed scraps and there is a splotched purple mark under his eye. He regards her with caution and she absolutely abhors it. These irrational thoughts are gone in a flash when she remembers his face when he fell, after he passed his own life force into her. He had been absolutely beaming, a smile that she never thought was possible, especially on him. It's the look that she wants from him right now instead of this uncertainty. She half expects to see him fade, his face rapidly dimming. Something inside her had been dying as well as he was passing on. 

This expression of caution that he's guarding himself with wasn't the worst thing, she supposes. Anything was better than that look that had burned itself in her memory. 

Nevertheless, she closes the space between them, Poe on her heels. 

"You don't look happy to see me." She blurts out.

"To be honest, I'm surprised they let you come in." He nudges his head towards the dissatisfied general. 

"It's _my_ ship, they had no choice." She says with conviction, putting a hard emphasis on the her inheritance. She lands a hard glare at Poe who returns it earnestly. 

He gives the room a once over, immersed suddenly in his surroundings, like he hadn't been there until this minute. She wondered what childhood memories were here for him. If he saw his father around the corner sometimes like she had. She wasn't sure how long he had been detained in this section of the Falcon, but she guessed that every second had been a moment too long for him. 

"What happened to my ship?" Ben asks, an odd tone behind it, however she didn't hear any malice in it. She grimaces anyways, remembering the inferno that she had made of the Tie whisper and the chars that had become of it. All that remained were bones of scrap metal by the time she was done with it.

"I crashed it."

His expression doesn't change, but she can feel his mind mulling over her response. 

"You crashed it." He says impassively. 

"On Luke's island." She adds quickly. "I don't believe it's salvageable."

"I see." He nods slowly, understandingly. "Noted." 

"Noted?" 

"Yeah. Under, do-not-overstimulate. Maybe piss-off-just-enough-but-not-too-much. You're the crazy one after break-ups, aren't you?" 

She and Poe blink at the same time. The ticking time bomb that was Kylo Ren did not appear in the features of the man in front of them. It would get some getting used to, she thinks as she absorbs the utter confusion wavering from Poe.

"I think we've got the picture." She scoffs.

Ben looks over at Poe with apprehension, like he needed someone to side with him. 

To his credit, Poe remains expressionless. 

Ben smirks as though he knew he won anyways and the moment he turns away, Poe gives her a look of disgruntlement and hissed with dissatisfaction, "This is incredibly conflicting for me to say, but I don't disagree."

Rey ignores him and continues after Ben, who is making his way to the storage bay. He flips open the switch protector and presses down on the door release. 

Poe mouth drops as the door slides open, recovering quick enough to bite out, "That was locked for a reason."

Ben stepped inside and looked backed, shrugging his shoulders and sticking out his bottom lip as though the matter was already out of his hands. "I've been sneaking on this ship for most of my childhood. I think I remember how to bypass the cargo hold door."

Rey makes a decision to lengthen her stride before Poe can get the chance to change his mind about this whole thing, although she's positive there is no way he could haul her out of there voluntarily. It's better not to let him think there was a no choice. She passes the door and it closes behind her, enclosing her inside with just him. Rey can vaguely hear Poe cursing on the other side, but the entirety of the world outside of this room is instantly irrelevant. 

Ben lingered by the storage units, his feet seemingly stuck in place. Whatever haughty attitude Ben Solo carried between the time she saw him first to when she sealed herself in the locker room with him, it was gone now. He was back to wariness and in contrast, all she felt was recklessness. His aura practically reeked of restraint. She made another quick decision, seeing that, for reasons beyond her, he wasn't going to make the first move. 

She had to stand on her toes in order to wrap her arms around his neck and he caught her around her midsection, lifting her upward so that she was only barely touching the ground. She felt the bridge of his nose press against her neck and his lips graze the dip between her shoulder and clavicle. His shoulder raised up as he inhaled and he held it. 

"You-" The sounds that comes from her throat is choked and she swallows hard before she tries again. "I did it."

She feels his lips curve. "You did it."

It's a great deal of effort to crane her neck away from him so that she can see him. He presses his forehead against hers in response. A cold shiver passes through her as she remembers a time of when she was in this exact position, where he pressed his forehead against her and smiled that wicked smile at her before it began to fade and-

-And he kept smiling. She continued staring at him, partly to convince herself that he kept this solid figure. His eye flicker up to her's, as though it took him this long to remember it as well, caught up in his own whirlwind to even contemplate anything other the bliss that filled the space around them. 

He squeezed her hands firmly and held them up against his chin. "Do you know what I had to go through to hold these?"

She makes a small sound of amusement. "I do, I was there."

And briefly, she wasn't there. She didn't remember what happened in the in-between, like she had only been asleep instead of deceased. The only remnant being how cold her body felt, her skin stiff and insides sluggish, when she opened her eyes, so cold that she immediately noticed Ben's hands holding her because they had been so warm in contrast. 

"How did I do it?" She asks quietly. 

He drops their hands and pulls them backwards so that that her arms stretch passed his sides and she falls forward into him. His fingers ghost up her arms and down the curves of her sides until his hands fit in the grooves of her hips. She follows his lead as he guides her to sit on a metal crate that lined the walls. 

"I don't know." He admits, taking a moment to sit next to her. "We have time, all the time in the world, to figure it out. I just want-" He cuts himself off and she can see he's biting the sides of his cheek. "I don't understand it yet. I'm still finding myself and what I want." He swallows hard. It dawns on her that he can't fully express it, how words do no justice to what he means right now. He's practically choking on an apology, but where could he even start? There would be a time where he will need to say the words that are lodged in his throat. She can see them, floating in the space between them. He means those words. _How can do I start over now that I know how much damaged is by my hand?_

Ben Solo, she decides, is brutally honest. The alter ego in the form Kylo Ren destroyed all emotions except the anger which fueled him. Ben Solo didn't know what to do, but it was written in bold letters across his face anyways.

"We have time, all the time in the world." She repeats his words. She places a hand over his hand and grips the top if it. 

He flips his hand over and takes hers in his. There are too many knots still there, but undestroying oneself was a slow process. First, they would start with him and then, they would face the rest of the world, together. 

XXX

On a distant planet, a sole figure wrapped in black garments, strode briskly up the lengthy grand staircase which was now crumbling, sections of steps missing and much of the siding lay in heaps on the ground below. One of the slim towers had been destroy eons ago and the dome observatory had caved in, allowing the last of the day's sunlight to stream in, 

The figure followed the darkness that lead deeper into the temple until no light penetrated through the growing cracks of the temple. The Takara Mountains surrounding the temple grounds, filled with sounds of life, was entirely absent the further and further into the crypts. Only bones rested there and now, footsteps echoing throughout the corridor, the first life form in thousands of years. 

Something forbidden and feeble reached out greedily at the sound of pulsing blood, the taste of aliveness, too irresistible. The figured slowed, life draining as though some spirit parasite coaxed out a breath or two, enough to summon a whisper that reverberated throughout the bare passageway. 

The tomb ahead cracked and a forbidden entity pressed against the other side of the stone. 

The figure paused.

"What's the matter? Not as powerful as you once were?" The figure speaks, from under the hood, white teeth glint from the small space between a smirk. "You know what you want. What do you offer?"

"No more tombs." A growl echoed through the chambers. "No more dead Sith."

"They are not dead." The figure snarls. 

"Lost." Another whisper rings with crystal clear clarity. 

"Not anymore." The figure holds out their arm and pushes a blade into the skin, penetrating enough that a blood drips down in slick drops. "I'll be back with the rest later. Consider it a gift." 

The blood seeps into the stone and absorbs instantly until no stain remained. Holstering the knife, the figure stalked out of the crypt and disappeared back into the blinding light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Jaws theme*  
> If anyone reads the novels, the timeline is OFF as heck so don't come at me. 
> 
> Thanks to all again for kudos and commenting!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "And Rey?" 
> 
> Rey pauses, turning her head only back at him. His eyes are narrowed sourly at her.
> 
> "That other cargo, it's going to be moved too. Maybe lay off on the finger tricks with that one."

She'll be the first to admit that when they first met, her and Finn got off to a rough start, but she'll insist that it hadn't really been her fault. Finn on the other hand, jumps at the chance to mention the incident. 

" _That thing she does with her face when she gets really pissed off? You don't want that coming at you full speed with her staff_." She overheard him once, mingling with the soldiers in a makeshift hanger after she kicked in a heat of frustration at a functioning lift extension rod on the loading doors for the Falcon.

They were practically on the same wave length now, despite that rough start. So in any case, the sensation of cold, cold water, pouring over her entire body is equivalent to the look Finn gives her when she's walking back to a table with her breakfast the next morning. She had woken up feeling more tired than she did when she fell asleep, but she has yet to feel any amount of regret over lost sleep. She had spent the majority of the evening in the Falcon and only to be dragged out by Poe on the demand that she needed food and sleep. She obliged, she was getting pretty hungry and her brain was dialing back into shut down. Those necessities almost weren't enough to ignore the nagging in the back of her mind that she shouldn't leave Ben, but the reassuring look he had given her when Poe shouted through the door that they needed to leave, it gave her just enough of a push to follow her protesting stomach.

In the end, she didn't get dinner after all. During the walk between the Falcon to unmanned food supply room, she filled Poe in on things she hadn't wanted to say in front of the rest of the Resistance fleet.

"A dyad? You're kidding me right?" Poe astonished, his features growing darker and anxiety palpably spiking. "What does that mean? Is that what he told you?"

"I've been seeing Ben through the bond for a few years, ever since I found Skywalker. Neither one of us can control it, it's been inconvenient at times to say the least, but it's like he's physically in front of me even when he's systems away. When we were in Pasaana, he knew where we were because he took the necklace that one of the locals gave me through it. And at Exegol, I gave him a lightsaber through the bond." She paused, still unsure of the next part. "Palpatine used it as a life force, to bring himself back and when I killed him, which is when I died too, Ben brought me back and I think that's how I brought him back as well. Dyad's are supposed to strengthen each other. I wasn't sure either, but I don't think he's lying about it."

"Skrog." He groans, he covers his bowed face with his palm. "If this is even a real thing, which I am not convinced! There is a lot more research we need to do. I've never even heard of this before." He points a finger at her throat in accusation. "You can't tell Finn, you'll give him a heart attack. You're lucky I haven't keeled over." Then his features soften. "You've been seeing him all this time?"

They both pause, the screaming of the predator nocturnal birds filling the lively jungle night followed by silence. Rey shivers, it's a sound she doesn't think she'll ever get used to. Neither does he, by the cautious once-over he does of the canopy treeline above.

"Anything else you'd like to add? You're not in love with him or anything, right?"

Rey grimaced, heat rushing to her cheeks before she could stop it. Even if she could lie, she couldn't convince anyone otherwise. It was far too late for that. "It's nothing."

She darts away, putting as much distance between herself from Poe as quickly as she could. She catches the briefest glance at his initial reaction, of his face twisting in confusion and he called out to her. She kept walking.

So when she walked to breakfast, saw the look on Finn's face, and was unable to discern what it meant, she decided there was no room for error. They needed to act normal, she needed to act normal. 

"Rose wants to talk to you." Finn only says as she approaches and she almost sighs in relief. 

She nodded, her eyes searched their surroundings for the familiar black bun.

"She's at her station." Finn didn't blink. "You okay?"

"Tired." She replied, she didn't have to lie about that at least.

"I'll come with you." He offers, he touches her elbow with his free hand that isn't holding a goblet sized mug of caf. "Intel's been busy, she's been working almost all night. We knew things wouldn't die down for long."

They make their way through the crowded dinning area, filled with more people there ever had been. Rebuilding an empire meant more hands, which wasn't a bad thing. Rey puts one and one together and assumes the man she doesn't know, dressed in Commander formals is the newly appointed Fleet Admiral who was supposed to land for briefing and a meet and greet with new command. Chak Fel, the Chiss Commander who was making waves in joining together the neutral territories, nods as they approach. 

"It's to be expected, every time there is a losing side there is a uprising somewhere. There are so many hits, like an unbelievable amount. I don't think there was this many in the entire war." Rose is already halfway into her brief, her fingers tracing paths on a map of the Outer Rim. 

"People align themselves with the current power." Poe grimaces. He's thinking of the battle of Crait. Of everyone that didn't come, when they needed reinforcements with their backs against the wall, but reaching out now in a scramble to make amends. Poe, who is proving himself to be a strong leader, a general who doesn't hold grudges and won't enter into new wars echoed by old sentiments, does not speak retribution. The hardness on his face does not speak of mercy either.

"Everyone is trying to revive all these old Sith legends. Look, this intel mentions some drunk Rodian going off about finding a Codex in Mustafar at some bar, but then he ended up dead in a back alley not even an hour later. That one actually made the Holonet. They're concerned about another Blackguard rising and there is talk of blowing the planet." Rose snatches up a datapad, flipping through various pages. Rey can only catch a headline, ' _Chief of State Natasi Daala; Declares State of Emergency of Cult Uprising._ '

"Blowing the planet?" Finn shakes his head fiercely. "We're no better than they are if we're going down this route, isn't this what we wanted to stop not too long ago?"

"The planet is haunted. All that dark energy is trapped in the atmosphere, you know the volcanic activity has been at record levels since Vader melted himself and then worse after the purge." Chak Fel speaks up. 

"We don't blow planets." Finn reiterates, fist tight at his sides and he pulls himself to full height, shoulders pulled back. 

The steady pulse of tension that had been beating between the two men for the entire encounter is red hot. Rey, who is exhausted and missed most of breakfast, has officially had enough.

"Finn's right, the Blackguard were basically Sith historians, they didn't like to be called that, but they were. They were wiped out in the Purge, but nobody could tell for sure how many were off planet at the time. If this is credible, we don't know what resources they have or could have in the future." Rey says firmly. 

"Those ruins are inaccessible. Like I said, the volcanic activity is extremely dangerous in that area. Like the planet is protecting itself from intruders, meaning us in case you needed that reminder." Chak Fel says warily. "You're sending people to their deaths. Isn't it better to just destroy it all?"

Poe clears his throat. "None of this is in official capacity. We can wait and have an official vote on this by the counsel. Or," he holds up a index finger and the smile on his face is nothing less than devious, "I have a guy that would jump on this opportunity. We have another problem and that's moving this entire operation to Ossus which is why we're here, in case you all needed that reminder. Maybe we can solve all these minute problems and I'll see you on Ossus."

Chek Fel falls silent, his plain demeanor suddenly twists in disgust. "I've heard the rumors, please tell me Kylo Ren is not being held here. Alive."

Poe doesn't break face. "Kylo Ren is dead with the Sith Eternal."

Chek Fel nods, his face tired and compliant. "We'll see you on Ossus." Finn doesn't take his eyes off the Hand until he's nearly to his own officers and then turns to Poe. 

"You know a guy?"

"Haven't asked him yet. Want a part time job? How does Sith temple raider sound?"

Finn cracks a smile. "Sounds pretty badass."

Poe winks and then turns to Rey with a mask of seriousness. "You've been sleeping for days you know. The least you can do is help move all theses boxes, with, you know, your little finger tricks." He bends his elbow and wrist into a crooked swan, as he waves his fingers and crunches his nose at her, it's her favorite description of the force yet. She sneers and waves her fingers back in a similar fashion.

"Whatever you say, General."

"And Rey?" 

Rey pauses, turning her head only back at him. His eyes are narrowed sourly at her.

"That other cargo, it's going to be moved too. Maybe lay off on the finger tricks with that one."

She hears a dull thud muffled against leather and knows Finn punches Poe in the side of the arm. 

XXX

  
The screeching of the landing deck dropping is a familiar sound, one he recollects with his childhood. It was uncanny how he still felt half embarrassed to be associated with the rusty bucket of a ship. Some things never changed, Ben hated that noise. Today, however, the noise correlated to half hope. The feeling is immediately extinguished by the feeling of dread and irritation that he associates Rey with when she's especially pissed off.

The question, what's with the attitude, instantly answered by the pilot who emerges first.

Poe holds up a pair of metal cuffs, they look awfully familiar to Ben. That tension in the air he had felt the moment they came aboard, he knows that it's not just coming from her anymore, himself as well. Rey waits, on her heels, unsure of what reaction may come next. 

"I have one on already." Ben holds up his wrist with the tracking band.

Poe shakes his head and holds the cuffs outward. "Let's see how the next few days play out. Then we can talk."

Ben swipes out and Poe releases them into his grip. 

Ben is a side sleeper. Ever since he first exceeded six feet in height when he was in his late teens, he never quite fit on the single cots at academy or the bunk in the Falcon in the days his dad still let him go with him. He was used to sleeping in spaces too small for himself and ever since then, he always managed to wake up with a numb arm and his knees bent up. Even in the bed in his quarters, which could easily fit two of him, his body always folded into itself long after he had fallen asleep.

There was a small chance that sleep would ever come with an arm dangled over the edge, chained to the leg of the bunk. Ben clasped the metal latch around his left wrist and stretched it outward towards Poe. "Satisfied?"

"Halfway there." He cocked his head slightly. 

Ben sat on the bunk, letting the bed squeak in protest as he falls not-so-gently, ducking his head to avoid hitting it against the metal ledge overhanging. It's a dull pain that plunges in his chest because he used to do this before when he was with Han and he just had to make a show of how annoyed he was with is father, for whatever reason at the time. 

Cellular memory is a bitch. 

He leaned over so that he was laying sideways in order to reach the metal leg, his body contorting in an awkward jumble of limbs until he fully detained himself. And vulnerable, he felt incredibly vulnerable laying in this position, cuffed to a bed with a former enemy between him and the only exit. 

He wasn't sure if he was a prisoner or not still. He's positive they are moving him, not just because they are detaining him, but he recognizes the whirl of engine underneath his feet. He briefly wonders if Chewbacca is aboard. 

He holds up his arm, now attached to the leg on the bunk, _are you happy now?_ He fixes his eyes on Poe, fighting the urge to look beyond him at Rey who is standing back still. He can feel her caution rippling through the air and a tinge of annoyance, at him or Poe, or both of them, most likely at both of them. She's still waiting for him to lose control and she's allowing Poe to test how far he can be pushed. Trust needs to be earned. No matter how childish the methods were to get there.

Besides, the rivalry with the pilot have morphed from something murderous into a pent up energy that demanded to be released or else they really would rip each other's heads clean off their shoulders. They might not be trying to kill the other anymore, but humiliating each other seemed to work just as fine.

If he were to be honest with himself, which, most of the time, he refused to do, he was testing himself as well. 

Poe flips a switch and steps out next to Rey, closing the door behind him, but not without calling back in a sing-song voice that scraps against the inside of Ben's skull. "Good night princess! Sleep tight!"

The door shuts and the entire room is dark with the exception of a glow panel against a wall, dimly lighting his surrounds to see the end of his bunk, but not the otherside of the room. He lays on his back and he can practically hear the silence around him in a steady thrum. He lays there, getting farther and farther from sleep every minute until thirty minutes pass and he is _done_ trying to get comfortable. He rolls over and attempts to position his arm in a way where the circulation in his forearm won't cut off too much in the middle of the night.

The familiar sound, a sharp inhale of air that encases him. He opens his eyes.

She's laying on the ground, facing away from him, but she must have felt it at the same time she did because her upper body twists around to face him, eyes wide even in the shadows that surround her. 

He holds up his hand as far as the manacle will allow. "Whose idea was this?"

"Poe." She says, there is no sympathy in it.

"Pity." He murmurs before he can stop himself. He's feeling way too cocky for someone strapped to a bed in his dead father's ship.

If she understands the joke, she doesn't let him on to it. He's not sure if that's worse or better. 

"You warned me that Palpatine wanted me dead."

"That's what he told me." It had been a warning, hadn't it? 

"Why would he lie to you, if he wanted to me alive? What if you did kill me?"

"Maybe he knew I wouldn't. I went to kill him originally, he made me a better offer."

"And what was that?" She has debated with herself whether she wanted to answer.

"Supreme power." He says immediately and then hesitates, whatever he almost says next, he decides against it and closes his mouth firmly.

"And you would have just brought me?"

"No." His lips twist in a snarl. "Not like that, not like how he wanted. Like I said, I wanted supremacy. With you alongside me, I could have achieved it. Together, we would have been powerful. I still believe that."

She ducks her head down and stares at a vacant spot on the floor. "I had a vision, but it didn't come true. Obviously."

"The Force doesn't always predict correctly. Mine didn't either."

She swung her head up to met his gaze, suddenly soft and somber. He never told her he had a vision too or rather, she didn't even think about it.

She goes first. "You and I ruled the Sith together."

He opens his mouth and closes it. She can see him processing her words and whatever else he was thinking about, he doesn't say it. "Mine almost came true. I saw that I brought you back after you died and I became one with the force in exchange. Life for a life. I didn't come back afterwards."

"When?" She astonishes in a voice that is too high and sharp to be her own. He stares at her instead of answering, because she knows and he knows she knows. Her minds whirls, whipping through the timeline of when she first had the vision and each time they saw each other after that. 

His non-answer tells her it all and she puzzles in the rest of it quickly, outrage aiding the speed in which she puts it together. "You _knew_ on Kef Bir-"

"If you would have come with me, when I told you about your parents, I would have gone back and killed him myself. I knew if you came with me, you would never go to Exegol and when I destroyed the Wayfinder, you wouldn't find it anyways. There's better ways to walk in and kill an undead Sith lord." Fury melted away at any gentleness left in his feature. "But then you ran off, crashed my ship, and flew to Exegol all by yourself."

"You wanted me to use me for your own gain. You knew I wouldn't have gone with you! You know that it would have been wrong. We would have built a broken empire on the bones of all the civilizations we would have burned in the process. She bites out, spouting out venom and bitter words that only come when she's this angry. And then for good measure, before she can regret them, "Just like your grandfather, just like mine!"

"It's really extraordinary, how I seem to have disappointed my entire family, no matter which side they are on." He sneers. He jerks on his back again, the metal of the manacle clanging loudly against the leg post.

They both are far enough apart so that she can fully evaluate his movements, how his shoulders sag and how he still breaths heavy, adrenaline pumping rapidly through his system as they throw fighting words at each other, lacing their insecurities into the crossfires. He can feel her take notice and evaluate, dreadfully, he feels her confusion and realization. Kylo Ren wasn't the only one afraid of rejection from those who loved or believed in him, Ben did too and Ben felt it first, before Kylo Ren was born.

She steps forward and touches his shoulder lightly, allowing herself to touch him, but not letting the weight settle on him either. He reaches back and presses her hand down with his own, holding it down, but not looking back at her either. He felt the heat seep between them, like it had always done before.

"I'm glad that it ended up like this. This is the universe I want you in, out of all the other ones."

"I still have a trial to go through. I know you don't want to talk about it because you keep avoiding it, but I could still be executed, maker knows people have for a lot less." Ben turns his head to the side, away from her. "I don't know what to do. I don't know how to not disappoint you."

The bond snapped in two, so violently that he felt it like a stab. It caught him off guard enough to make him sit up right, forgetting his tether so his body bounced against the shackles causing some sharp pain that felt like tearing in his shoulder. He cursed and he spun around and kicked at the linking chain for good measure, ignoring the pain as it rubbed against his wrist. 

He feels a heat, her warmth, in sharp waves that can only be described as scolding. _Don't be so Han about this_ , ringing out, although her voice isn't there anymore, but it's all her all the same.

In the bunker, not even twenty feet away, Rey slowly lowers herself down on the thin mattress. There is nobody to see the heat in her cheeks, Poe is snoring steady beside her, but she feels flustered still. She thinks she feels him smirk. 


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Poe drummed his fingers the steel sidings, dismissive of the rising tension. "Back to business, right? So why can't we just blast the temples?"
> 
> "Because the solution isn't to just blast everything clear into space."

Ossus was a planet on the tail end of environmental catastrophic, ravaged from chemical storms and desolately arid climate. From a distance, Rey could see ridges dipping in the burnt surface, the skeleton spine of a once lush and vibrant range of mountains. As they drew closer into the thinning atmosphere, Rey could see young life sprouting, trees sporadically growing from cracks in the ground. 

As though he could sense her uninspired first impression, Poe flicks a nut slice at her, one that he hadn't been willing to share earlier.

"We won't be here forever, it's just to get started."

She nodded dully.

It had been three hours, almost four, since they first landed, since Poe disappeared in the meeting chambers, where he had been invited as new leadership of the Galactic Alliance, and Rey was officially about to lose her mind.

For the past hour, she had been entertaining herself by watching clouds pass over the bare mountainsides while from behind the closed doors at the end of the hallway, members of leadership discussed the new state of government and diplomats for corridors of the galaxy. Part of her was glad she didn't have to be involved in those political games. 

And at least they had had enough sense to build headquarters somewhere that wasn't as desolate as the east side of the planet, where everything struggled to grow.

The sound of doors opening and footsteps hastily moving down the corridor caused her to turn. An entourage of people emerged from the chambers, just in time too, and she scanned the crowd for the familiar face she had been waiting for.

Poe didn't look happy when she finally spotted him. The hallway turned forked left and right, while the sitting room sat right in front of the doors that had been shut for almost four hours. Poe remained straight, his path towards her, while the majority of the others split left and right down separate hallways. 

"How was it?" She asked anxiously.

"Not here." Poe murmured. He bobbed his head to the west hallway.

She followed behind him as he strode away in long strides, like he couldn't wait to get out of there.

They walked in silence out of the temple and towards the landing pads where the Falcon sat. The cargo door had already been lowered and there was no sign of the Wookie, which was strange considering the security concerns and measures they had been ensuring for the last few days.

"We have guests, just so you know." Poe mumbled, his pace slows when they were nearly to the freighter.

"Friendly?" She narrowed her eyes.

"Yes. Chewie moved our little friend earlier, so don't freak out."

She relaxed minutely, only because she was relieved that open door was not just because of carelessness. Poe leads up the ramp and Rey follows, eyeing wearily inside the artificially lit cargo hold. Her eyes land immediately on two strangers, sitting silently on containers that had been pulled from the sides to the middle of the room. The older man barely looked at her, twiddling with a strip of leather on a vibroblade sheath. The younger of the two, who looks around Ben's age, looks back at her with what she guesses is the same amount of apprehension as she approaches them with.

"Rey." Poe holds out an arm to her as an introduction and then to the older man. "A'Sharad Hett."

"Where is Tionne?" The younger man interrupts, his eyes never leaving Rey. Although he still regards her with a certain caution, he doesn't look as stiff as did a second ago. 

"Coming later." Poe replied.

"Ransolm Castefro." Ransolm stared past Rey at the weapon that she slung across her shoulder. "Nice quarterstaff, I use one myself."

"Careful Castefro, that's not all she's carrying." A'Sharad lifts the hem of his trench coat, a lightsaber clipped to his side.

Although it crosses her mind that there is another agenda at work here that she still had little information about, a fact that has kept her in check so far, this is her ship. She doesn't look the weapon check that Hett is giving her, but she's also curious. Lightsabers were a thing of the past, there is another story behind the rough edged man he lowers own jacket down to hide the weapon again.

She thumbed at the rod at her own side anyways.

Although she hadn't been able to sense the familiar presence that she associated Ben with, she still swept the interior for reassurances. She didn't know where he or Chewie were, but they weren't here.

Poe drummed his fingers the steel sidings, dismissive of the rising tension. "Back to business, right? So why can't we just blast the temples?"

"Because the solution isn't to just blast everything clear into space." Ransolm rolled his eyes.

"Tionne wants those holocrons." A'Sharad's hand moved back down to gripping the metal edge of cargo. "It's foolish to chalk these tips up as rumors. It's like Daala wants another uprising."

"Chief of State was there?" Rey isn't sure why she's surprised. Natasi Daala had been making headlines for a while, recently with anti-Jedi sentiments. It seemed she hadn't fully renounced the Imperial to many and her new leadership role. It was curious in the least how she attained the position in the first place.

A'Sharad barely glanced over at Rey and looked back forward. "Daala is barely a leader. She's a puppet. That's the trick, let'em know you're on to them. Then at least you're not on their string."

"While we're on the subject, it might be smarter to not call her out in front of the entire leadership of the Alliance. We can do without the target on our backs." Poe scolds.

"Best wishes with that." A women's voice chimed from behind, clicks of heels against the cargo ramp.

Rey turned to the voice, a women with silvery hair pulled back and soft features that eased the hair raised on her neck. She walked passed Rey, giving her a curious look, and stood on the outskirts between the pairs.

"And who was I advocating for?" A'Sharad lift his eyebrows. "Oh yes, for you. You're welcomed Tionne."

Tionne frowned, obviously disapproving of the quip. She turned her attention to Poe. "Before you say anything, I want to be straightforward and say I won't go against the counsel's vote. We don't need anymore enemies."

"I wouldn't expect you to. It would be dishonorable and I would never ask that of you." 

"Which means no reconnaissance on Mustafar, that was very specifically off limits." 

Poe cracked a half smirk. "What if I told you I already had a guy there?"

Tionne's expression didn't change, but the irritation was unmissable in her voice. "Come again?"

"Nobody said we couldn't go there two days ago." Poe shrugged. "And he hasn't responded to any of his transmissions in the last day. This is a rescue, not a reconnaissance, do we need approval for that?."

Tionne sighed heavily, clasping her hands tightly together and holding them against her mouth. A'Sharad and Ransolm, in contrast, were grinning wildly at the General. Ransolm stood up, shaking a finger in approval. "I think we're going to work well together."

XXX

"Are you done in there yet?"

Finn knocked against the T-70 X-wing, listening to the whirls and fabrication noise behind the paneling as the droid worked to disconnect the receiver welded into the dash. He adjusted his mask uncomfortable over his mouth, hot air perspiring around the edges and his eyes were starting to burn from exposure against the toxic metallic air. The ground below started to tremor again, lava cracking in hot bubbles in the veins of the canyon.

Dissatisfied beeping muffled by the sound of a torch came from somewhere inside.

Finn, who hadn't mastered droidspeak, understood enough to shut up.

He flinched at BB-8's shrieking and a loud bang inside the cockpit. Lifting himself up, he peered into the pilot's seat where the receiver had landed inside. By the time he lifted it out and tossed it back to the ground, BB-8 had already lowered himself out down to the ground rolled out to wait for Finn.

"I'm sorry, it's too heavy!" Finn asserted as he nearly threw the heavy part on BB-8, who was wailed as he rolled back under to safety of the X-wing.

Finn leaped down and lifted the receiver, trying to use his legs instead of his back, tottered towards the edge of the lava pit and threw it into the fiery river with one heaving motion.

BB-8 toned in dismay.

"Not my idea, stop being mad at me."

BB-8 ignored him and lifted himself back into the X-wing.

Finn clamored back to his seat as well, satisfied that the receiver was molten by now. "You got the coordinates for Tahv? I'm good if you're good."

The X-wing lifted, unsteadily, and accelerated upwards.

XXX

Ben blinked against the bright light that filled his vision.

The doorway was filled by a massive figure, still too blurry from the haze of sleep and blinding fluorescence to fully make out. He blinked again. The Wookie was standing sideways, his face titled down, eyes in a deadlock with Ben. He sat up and swallowed.

Chewie didn't speak. He held his stare for a moment longer, one hand clenching his bowcaster and there other in a tight fist. With a quick flick of wrist, a binder key scattered across the floor before the Wookie disappeared completely from the room leaving the door ajar.

With an outstretched leg, Ben managed to pull the key close enough so that he could grip it between both feet and pull it to his hands. He fumbled a bit trying to get the key into the center hole. The design was to prevent this sort of escape from happening and it was very much, not happening. Sliding the key in his fist, he inhaled sharply, frustration rising and without any outlet that didn't include breaking his wrist and-

-And the binders snapped open and drop to the floor.

Rubbing his wrists, Ben stood up and followed where Chewie had left, guided only by the series of open doors until he was back into the cargo hold, the hanger door wide open. He walked down into the heat of the desert, air dry and unforgivably hot. Chewie waited just to the side, unwilling to look in Ben's direction now that they were in the open.

The UT-60D shuttle, parked almost too closely to the Falcon distracted Ben from this miserable situation that was unfolding. He could do this, if this was the worse thing that was going to happen today, he could manage this.

He froze, a familiar face, now older and descending stiffly down the sleek ivory spacecraft, faced him. He hasn't been specific enough it seemed.

Lando Calrissian, a man that Ben had known for the entirety of his life for his never failing air of confidence, looked back at Ben with such a look of apprehension, he almost didn't recognize him as the same man. _What changed_? The thought springs up before he can stop it and he shoves it back down. He knows what changed.

The memories of his father taking him to Cloud City are overwhelming and the weak hold of control he has of his spinning mind is worthless to keep the memories from flooding back in unrelentless waves. _Keep an eye on the Falcon, okay kid? He's itching to get his hands back on it._ Han still had to reach to ruffle the top of Ben's hair, a rare act of affection that he remembers from his father.

He isn't ready for this tangible piece of evidence of his childhood and Ben nearly keels over, confronted with it.

He remembers exactly what he felt like the moment he decided to go to Snoke, a boy succumbed, for the last time, he swore this would be the last time, of the betrayal by those who were suppose to love him. He starkly recollects what he felt like when he left his home for Luke's temple, when he was first felt this unruly rage and didn't know how to let it vent, all he knew was that he couldn't contain it and there was no other place for it go.

There's still a part of him that urges him to let this wrath free, to use these emotions as something useful, to fight against the vulnerable state in the only way he knows how. He doesn't know what to do with this pain otherwise.

"I didn't want to believe that you came back." Lando said stiffly. 

Ben didn't reply. _I want to go home!_ A younger version of Ben screams from the past, the Ben who still called this man uncle 'Ando.

"You know, I turned on your father once. Gave him and your mom up to your grandfather to save my own people. Your dad was mad as hell at me for a long time." The corner of his mouth lifted up, eyes distance as though he was suddenly years and year into the past as well. "He forgave me eventually."

"It's not the same." Ben said numbly. 

"No." Lando rejoined Ben into the present. "I don't think I can give the same thing he gave me. I'm not doing this for you." The hatch the the U-wing lowered, Chewie stepped forward, leaving Ben, whose feet were cemented in place. 

Lando holds up the tracking beacon that Poe had to monitor Ben's movements, connected to the device on his wrist. "And you aren't doing this for me either." He turned back to the shuttle as the engine fired up. "You coming?"

Ben steps forward. "I'm coming."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because we never got a Lando/Chewie/Ben reunion.
> 
> Sidenote, Ben still has a galaxy's worth of skeletons in his closet, both past and future. The man has issues and he's got a looooooong ways to go as far as making amends. 
> 
> Also, lots of new characters that are going to stay in the plot. ALSO I raised the chapter count to 15. Thank you for everyone reading and commenting!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's a secret mission, kid." A'Sharad held a single finger up to the center of his mouth in a shushing manner. "Everyone thinks we're picking banner fabrics for the parade Daala's throwing herself."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wowow thank you everyone for reading. I wrote a monster of a chapter and then had to divide it so here's part one of chapter six I guess? 
> 
> Expect to dive into more of Ransolm/A'Sharad and their relationship with Ben later. For now, they're experiencing that feeling where you've seen someone, but you don't know where you've seen them.

Finn didn't think it was possible to sour BB-8's mood even more than he had already, but he was terribly mistaken as they crash-landed nearly a klick away from the ruins of Vader's castle. Finn clamored out of the smoking U-wing, tumbling to the ground when his shaky legs failed to hold him up. He wiped the dirt off his face look down at his palm to the sight of smeared blood. He felt around his scalp for the source, feeling no immediate pain in his dizzy stupor.

He flinched hard as his finger gazed his temple and he felt the crack in soft flesh. He must have gotten soil into the wound because it was difficult to fully feel where the cut started, thick red drops dripped along the sides of his face for further distraction. He tried to wipe as much as it off as he could, but he knew he was just making it worse. He looked down at BB-8.

"Remind me to tell Poe I quit when they get here."

BB-8 beeped in acknowledgement. 

XXX

"Do you think they've killed each other yet?"

Poe snorted. She and Poe had been seated in the cockpit even though they had been on autopilot for hours now. The time had mostly been spent in comfortable silence, Rey finished a translated verison of _Rammahgon_ while Poe studied a book she had never seen before entitled ' _Republic_ '. He leaned back in his chair as far as it would go, opening the book from the center, marked by a scrap of wrapper.

"I told Lando I need His Excellency back in one piece so he'd be disobeying a direct order otherwise."

"That's going to come back and bite you if you aren't careful."

Poe raised an eyebrow at her from his page. "You object?"

Rey elected to ignore his quip. She glanced back at the door leading to the lounge. "Do they know?"

Poe was silent for a moment, straightening himself to appear firm, but she caught his eyes averting away. "Tionne is the only one who would recognize him."

"Luke's academy." She nodded. She had thought of this before, the timeline matched to when Tionne had taught at the academy on Yavin 4 when Ben was a student. "You think it's best to surprise her with that tidbit?"

"I guess we're going to find out." Poe grinned hollowly. He looked like he had more to say, but his mouth remained in a tight line and he went back to reading. It was a clear indicator that the conversation had come to an abrupt end. 

She sat up from her chair and maneuvered towards to the exit. "I'm going to grab a bite before we make planetfall. You want anything?"

"Nope." With careful restraint. If there was one word that didn't apply to Poe Dameron, it was restrained and he was putting effort to it.

With that, Rey retreated to the lounge. Now that they were on the tail end of the Hydian Way, there wouldn't be much time to take a break from this point on anyways. Although it was quiet, the lounge wasn't empty. Tionne sat around the hologame table, studying intently at a notebook, not a datapad Rey noted, and A'Sharad sat on the floor across cleaning his blaster. Rey walked across to the storage units where she had saved her non-perishables, sneaking in a glance over at the historian.

Tionne, who had been immersed in her reading, glanced up as Rey crossed the room back to the cockpit and scooted over to make room for her, although there was plenty of room already. Rey rerouted and accepted the silent invitation to join her, unwrapping her stale ration bar.

"I've heard so much about you in the past few days, it's nice to finally have met." Tionne said. A ripple of pride waved through Rey, she didn't get the feeling that Tionne was one to say something if she didn't mean it. If anything, Rey was a little bewildered at thought of meeting her. It made sense why some people didn't want to meet their heroes, she was scrambling for anything to say that didn't sound too idiotic.

"Master Tionne, isn't it? I've read your name so many times, it's hard to believe I'm sitting next to you." Rey said with awe. "You took over the Jedi Archives, without you all those texts would be lost. There is so much I've learn from you."

"Just Tionne." She smiled brilliantly. "I worked long hours restoring those scripts, it's nice to hear that someone read them. We're rebuilding the Jedi Archives. Trying to at least." Tionne snuck a glance over to A'Sharad who snorted in response. 

"It's a secret mission, kid." A'Sharad held a single finger up to the center of his mouth in a shushing manner. "Everyone thinks we're picking banner fabrics for the parade Daala's throwing herself."

"You're well known for your ability to invoke terror in politicians and your fashion sense. Nobody would even second that, that was your assignment." Tionne cracked a smile. 

"How is a holocron on Mustafar going to help rebuild the Archives?" Rey tried to steer the conversation back on track. She was curious and had, at this point, followed Poe's lead faithfully. It wouldn't hurt to dig a little bit. 

Tionne directed her attention back to her notebook, flipping back the pages, paper upcurling at the ends on the sheets that had been used. She paused at a page and slide the book across to Rey and pointed at crudely drawn sketching of a dodecahedral device. Rey didn't recognize it as a holocron at first, most she had seen had been of simpler design, this datacron was obviously not the same. 

"It's called the Great Holocron, it's information is almost infinte, I've been attempting to track it down for sometime now. In almost every change of power, whether it be Jedi or Sith or someone else, the dying side always scrambles to recover any source of data for recovery which would make this one extremely valuable. You wouldn't believe how many skeletons they find in these ancient Temples trying to get a hold of these holocrons." 

"Hopefully that doesn't include us." A'Sharad interrupts, his eyes now closed and held tilted back against the siding. 

"This is Jedi? How did it end up on Mustafar?" Rey observed the script carefully. A list of planets had been listed in the bottom corner, all struck out in thick black lines and frustrated scribble.

"It's not technically certain to be there, but we'll never know unless we get there before they destroy the entire planet. So they say they're going to do." Tionne said impassively. "Like I said, it has great value. There is more bloodshed on this device than for any other holocron I've come across and Darth Vader wanted it _badly_. It belonged to the Jedi before it was stolen by one of his soldiers and it's been missing ever since. Well until today I hope."

"If lava hasn't already destroyed it yet." A'Sharad mumbled. 

"Vader's fortress was built on top of Sith caves where he stored many of his artifacts, which may or may not engulfed in lava. Again, we won't know until we're there." Tionne shrugged. 

Rey's comm crackles to life. "Rey, we're almost there if you wanna get up here."

A'Sharad opened his eyes finally and moved to stand up. He holstered his blaster on the opposite side of his lightsaber. "Welcome to Mustafar. You know what they say about this place? It's where Jedi go to die."

XXX

Ben was seated in crew seating behind the pilot and co-pilot for the majority of the flight to Mustafar. For a while, he laid across the seats, legs hanging off the ends. Lando and Chewie hadn't tried to hide their destination from him, but they never out rightly told him either. He only caught the grumblings from Chewie as they prepared to enter lightspeed earlier on. 

For a moment, Ben wondered if that was his final destination. So far, they were pretty lenient about his movements, treating him more as a common thief rather than a war criminal. Mustafar had been unexpected though and he didn't have the slightest clue on why anyone would want him there. In fact, it seemed like that was the _last_ place he should ever go.

As they descended into thick black clouds that perpetually hung above the scarlet plant, the shuttle shivered and groaned, the compartment above him shook as whatever was inside slammed against the doors. The landing was typically rough. Ben remembered it from the last time he was here and fastened his safety belt. Mustafar wasn't a temperate planet, it boasted high heat and wicked weather including wild gusts which were to blame for the swaying starcraft. 

"Did the Falcon crash?" He heard Lando's mumbled voice from the seat in front of him. Another burst of turbulence rocked the ship, dislodging a utility trunk that hadn't been strapped down properly from the over hanger storage, Ben barely dodged a wrench that came inches from hitting his head. Although he didn't fully trusting that everything else was properly secured, he twisted his body around to peer out the viewport. Smoke spiraled into the sky, sending Ben's mind into a frenzy of worst case scenarios, _it's_ my _ship_ , reverberating in his head. 

"Ok no, I see the Falcon, we're heading over there." Lando sounded relieved himself. "Whose X-wing is that?"

Ben relaxed, turning back forward as the U-wing continued it's path down and he felt the familiar shake of landing gears meeting the ground. 

He waited for Lando and Chewie to finish sequencing and the _whoosh_ of the hydraulics of the hanger door opening before he moved to stand. He still had the binders, Chewie had never asked for them back and he wasn't sure what protocol would be at this point. He held them out as Lando moved to walk past him, in offering. Lando didn't spare him a second glance. "Keep em'. I don't want them."

"Yeah, you think I do?" Ben murmured, tucking the binders in his side pocket. 

Chewie took his time in the back of the ship, restraining some items that become loose during the landing. Ben still waited uneasily near the hanger door, which was still wide open. Neither Lando or Chewie seemed concerned about that. He could hear the cracking of the lava beds in the distance, the heat already smolder even from inside. 

He took the chance that he could, in fact, leave. His legs were aching after the flight and the familiar sight of his later father's ship put him at ease that he was not being marooned on this planet. 

What he didn't expect was the sight of Master Tionne Solusar standing just below the boarding ramp of the Falcon.

In the years that he had known her, Master Tionne was always the picture of tranquility. Ben had looked up to her for many years, as student who was eager to gain as much knowledge as he could absorb and Tionne had been more than satisfied to appease him. He had always ignored the nagging thought of what she thought when he left behind the Academy in flames. 

It turned out, she was just as surprised as he was. He could see the slow realization and disbelief, prompting his mental shields to flare up because he didn't want to feel this. He understood _just enough_ from her expression. 

The unfamilar man beside her, who had a quarterstaff slung across his back, looked at Ben and then over at Tionne, and then back at Ben, his face narrow with apprehension. "You know him?" 

Another man descended down the boarding ramp, followed by another figure, this one familiar. 

The color is Rey's face drained in slow horror as her head darted between Tionne and back to him in quick movements. 

Time froze as the two strange men observed him, suspension turning defensive at him, all for good reason because from Tionne and Rey reactions, he seemed more like a threat than like a friend. 

The older man closest to Rey reached slowly and casually at his side, hand steady and at his belt, legs postured in a defensive stance. 

"This is your guy?" Tionne said with a whiff of dry amusement. "A'Sharad, put it down."

A'Sharad complied, but didn't fully relax, hand sliding down his thigh near the vibroblade strapped above his knee. 

Ben didn't speak, unsure of anything to say. Finding words seemed to be a problem as of late for him. Lando despised him, Tionne was nearly laughing at him, it was impossible situation to decipher.

The sound of something heavy dropping and cursing came from on the shuttle behind him, followed by, "For the last time, take it! We don't have all day." Chewie appeared, howling in displeasure, a rucksack strapped to his back and his bowcaster ready in his arms. 

Lando followed behind him, struggling with to drag a similar rucksack along. "Goddamn it kid, are you going to take this?"

Ben snaps into action, relieved to escape the heighten tension. Lando left the oversize pack at the bottom of the ramp and brushed passed Ben. "I see you found your crew."

"And you didn't disappoint either." Poe's voice comes from somewhere. Ben turns in time to see Lando toss his tracking device at Poe who catches it with two hands. Ben lifts straps and heaves the pack across his back like Chewie had done, but whatever is in it is heavy. It's pure determination that he's able to get it up and over. 

And he walked straight towards Rey, now that Lando and Chewie move ahead of him, his focus solely on the women who had crossed half the distance between the two ships and was standing hesitantly across from him. To hell with everything else, they were basically at the gates of the Underworld already.

Another figure stepped between Rey and himself, he couldn't contain the scowl as he registered the former Stormtrooper, who didn't seem much happier to see him. It took him a moment longer to notice the gash across his face, from his eyebrow down to the arch of his jawline was smeared in dirt and blood. 

At least he figured out whose X-wing crashed, Ben couldn't say he was surprised either. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rey and Ben can't catch a break :/
> 
> Maybe they'll get a breather later (*shifty eyes*)
> 
> [Jedi Archives](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Jedi_Archives)  
> [Great Holocron](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Great_Holocron)  
> [Fortress Vader](https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Fortress_Vader)  
> Poe's book in Republic by Plato. The man is trying, give him all the credit.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They had a job to do and the metal band around his wrist suggested he wasn't going to get paid for it afterward.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're going ~~horcrux~~ hunting now kids!

It seemed like another life ago when he was last on Mustafar, which in some regard, it had been. The dark energy prodded him, confused and incredulous. It was the same body, but resistant this time. _Use me_ , it pleaded.

He couldn't shake the feeling that this is a place he should not be in, but he couldn't stop his feet from moving forward either. They had been walking for nearly twenty minutes and although nobody gave him even a hint of their destination, he knew where they were going.

Beyond them in the distance, passed black mounds of rock and lava rivers running through the earth as veins, Vader's castle stood, peeking from the ash coated hillside.

Tionne stopped short and her relief was palpable. "It's not in the caves."

Ransolm halted beside her. "You sure?"

Tionne shook her head and gazed up at the tuning towers. "It's inside, under the castle. I'm positive."

Ben understood himself, he felt it something too. A glimmer that rested in the heart of the castle, faint, but there. The sensation was feeble compared to the overwhelming heaviness that lay in the Sith caves ahead, which pulsed steadily, matching the beat of blood pumping in his ears or maybe his body was syncing to them instead.

A nagging part of him wanted to go inside, like an itch he couldn't quite reach. He was familiar to the call, the never ending struggle to the dark that would never completely die. It promised power, it brought decay. The temptation lingered anyways.

Perhaps that was his purpose after all. Tough luck about the change of plan.

Ben felt a sharp stab of panic that was not his own and realized that the fear wasn't just his, Rey was nearly radiating with it

Her level of anxiety did not decrease as they started their trek along the canyons of lava and obsidian rock protruding a crooked and difficult path towards the ruins of Vader's fortress, the tower was crumbling and the two steeples protruding from the top pointed skyward like tuning forks had been badly damaged, half of the top on the left one was missing.

_What is happening to me?_

Ben's eyes swept back to her. "It's the design of the dark side. When you feel weak, you'll turn to whatever makes you feel strong. The reason Vader choose Mustafar was it's connection to the dark, it's the place he was most able to channel it."

A'Sharad slowed his pace, letting Rey draw up next to him. "We all feel it, it's not pleasant."

Ransolm reached out from the other side of her and touched the top of her shoulder in reassurance.

Ben could not have stopped himself even if he wanted to, the feeling was too quick to grab a hold of and cram down, who was this guy anyways? He rolled his eyes and bit his lip which was the only reason he was able to hold back his tongue. A thick wave of bitter jealousy surged through him, burning like acid at the bottom of his stomach.

Rey swung around and there was no mistaking the expression as anything other than outrage. This planet thrived on misery and pain, it practically bred loneliness. Envy was intensified in the dry air and it must have felt like he had punch her with it. As quickly as it came, it was gone, soured with self loathing in replacement. He absolutely detested himself for it, she had already been struggling the moment by the time he had landed and now he was the one reducing her to further isolate herself.

There wasn't a good way of apologizing in the moment and so he didn't. Any expression of regret would not come across in the way he intended, he was never good it anyways. He kept his gaze dead forward.

They had a job to do and the metal band around his wrist suggested he wasn't going to get paid for it afterward.

The fortress had deteriorated in the years, no matter how many times various cults that rose since the death of Darth Vader tried to rebuild it. There were various theories including the most realistic idea that the shifting plates of the planet was causing the castle to collapse. Some people said that Vader's essence had been connected to it and since his death, or turn to the light depending on who was talking, the castle died with him.

In any case, if had looked unstable before, it looked on the verge of collapse with a single poke of Rey's quarterstaff now.

Tionne frowns, studying the castle, unsure. "Perhaps we should divide into groups. The structure is much more unstable than I thought previously." She turned to Ben, expression unchanged. "You can handle it?"

' _You doubt me?_ ' An internal voice snapped. "I can do it." Ben said instead.

Tionne glanced sideways at Poe. "You and Finn should stay put. We might need another pilot in case things go south."

Finn's eyes flickered back to Ben and he had been doing a pretty good job at maintain a leveled composure around the former Stormtrooper, but his patience was wearing thin. The restraint he had managed was coming from a place Ben was unaware even existed. Well, actually...

He glanced over at Rey who had been ticking with nervous energy since she laid eyes on him. In all honesty, he wasn't afraid of her falling apart from the tension, he didn't get the sense of a incoming meltdown. If anything, she made him anxious, because he knew she wouldn't hesitated to send them both back on their asses if they so much breathed too closely near each other.

Poe handed off his device to Ransolm and they continued forward without the pilot and Stormtrooper.

The grand entry doors were gone. If the place didn't seem haunted before, the pitch blackness that awaited inside confirmed it.

At the far end of the corridor, dim light flooded. It didn't seem like they were getting any closer as they walked on, if anything, the nervous energy prolonged it. Once they finally passed through the open arched doors, they emerged in the atrium, a stark contrast to the closely confined walls of passage from which they had come from.

On the far side, the walls were lined with tall windows, the glass had been shattered, but remained intact enough that it hadn't fully punctured through. The viewpoint had faced over the cliffs and he could see for miles. Veins of fire stretched over black Gahenn plains, he could barely make out beyond the out skirted mountains, obscured with the thick clouds of smoke and sot.

He didn't have time to look for long, Tionne and A'Sharad were already moving on.

The glow panels flickered on the floor, otherwise there wasn't much light to guide them on. 

The corridors tunneling in a declined slope were from a nightmare. The sound of explosions and shifting rock were muffled in the distance, but it did sound like the entire place may snap in half and disappear into the cracks at anytime.

Tionne led. She made sharp turns down split hallways, always leading into further darkness. She walked as though she was familiar with the layout, Ben wasn't sure how she knew where to go. He couldn't feel anything that was leading her. All he felt was the dark energy pulling him in every direction and he had to pull up his mental shields just to filter it out.

He strategically lagged behind them. Rey kept turning around to look back at him and Ben had to do his best not to glare back at her after a while.

_She doesn't trust you_ , a voice whispered in the back of his mind.

He banished the thought and kept his head down and they trekked on down into the depths of the castle until they had reached what Tionne had been searching for.

Ben only glances into the oval room where Tionne and A'Sharad disappear, but then he sulks away. Skulls stack on each other, half buried into obsidian, only separated by shelving that ran around the catacombs directly in the center of the wall. The shelves were mostly empty, a small selection of ancient tomes and ash coated statues. Rey lingered in the entryway while Tionne and A'Sharad split ways, each carefully inspecting each artifact. Ransolm stood face to face with one of the skulls, his face matching the unease he felt.

"Who are they?" Ransolm said with a tint of anger.

Tionne paused, observing a snythsilk head cover pinch between two fingers. "Mustafarians. They tried to reclaim their planet, there was mass causalities."

Ransolm made a sound of disgust, finally tearing his eyes away from the collection of bones.

Rey had been reaching for Ben's presence, a warmth against the back of neck that wasn't quite there, but didn't leave either. She glanced back to check on him, shifting her concern of pushing back her own nausea to how he was handling it.

His face was turned in the opposite direction, refusing to look inside the mass grave. His eyes flicker from the dark tunnels to her feet when he feels her eyes on him. He remains unmoved as she reaches back and her hand ghosts over the fabric of sleeve pulled down past his wrist. She must somehow realize that this is too much. The internal battle waging between guilt and shame must be written clearly on his face. This place would have been a shrine to him not too long ago, a wall of trophies of conquest. 

Part of him wanted to see it. I will finish. He knew what lay inside, the remnants of the massacre, and he saw the village of Tuanul buried in the sand through it. It doesn't feel right that he can just look away, but he can't bring himself to do it. What you started.

"A'Sharad, come look at this." Tionne interrupts his thoughts with a tone of urgency.

He still doesn't look up, but he can hear the soft taps of boot heels and A'Sharad grunting.

"Congrats professor, you've earned this."

Ransolm and Rey move at the same time. A'Sharad emerged from the catacomb, holding a sleek duraplate box that emitted a faint glow from the seam. the pentagonal holocron glimmered, crystal face revealing its inner mechanisms and electrum frames.

"I believe the caves lay on the other side of that wall. That's why the residual energy is so strong here, it almost masks everything else." Tionne followed him out and led the path out.

"Tricky." Ransolm mumbled, following behind.

Going back up was like a weight was lifted off his chest, like air could completely fill his lungs again. Leaving was non problematic, easy.

They emerged outside to the pilot and Stormtrooper waiting for them outside.

"That was quick." Poe said. "You got it?"

A'Sharad patted his satchel.

Finally, they leave. The jetty was a long stretch of rock and he couldn't wait to be on the other side of it. He didn't even mind the awkward encounter with Lando that was to come.

"Rey? Where are you going?" Finn shouted from behind him.

Her answer is distant. "I'm fine, I just want to see. There's something else here."

He was moving too slow. It feels like he was moving in slow motion as his head swivels and his mind operates even slower as he watched her walk back towards the fortress, towards the caves below it and he ran.

He isn't gentle when he reached her, engulfing both sides of her arms with his and heaved her away, breaking her from the haze and sending her into a frenzy of panicked fury. She snarled and ripped away her arm, her elbow meeting bone and a distinct crack filling the air. She held a palm out, Force-pushing the intruder away.

The sight of Ben laying on the ground is enough to snap her back into reality. He struggled to his feet quickly, but froze at the sheer horror on her face. Thick red liquid was dripping down his lip and he tasted iron, unpleasant in the back of his mouth. Ben pressed a hand over his mouth and pulled it away, evaluating the amount of blood that came back with it. It was a fair amount, she got a good one in.

She came to herself swiftly after that, taking long strides to him and immediately reaching out for his face. He dodged her.

"Stop, you can't right now. It's fine, it's fine." He was finally on both feet and trying to get away from her, but she refused to let him defer him.

She wasn't crying, but she might as well had been. She kept trying to reach out to stop him, but he twisted away again. "I'm sorry! I don't know what I was doing. Please, let me stop the bleeding."

"I said, don't." He snapped, muffled by the hand clasped under his broken nose. She would make a mess if she tried to heal him right then and then she would feel even worse. It wasn't going to happen, he wasn't losing that much blood. It was only a nosebleed.

Tionne was there suddenly, pulling Ben to face her. He allowed her to angle his face away, but his eyes still followed Rey. She remained rooted in place, watching him back warily.

"Rey, come'on." Ransolm said firmly, moving past Ben. His hand pressed against her arm again, directing her away. She jerked away at him. He persisted, but didn't touch her. "Rey."

Rey stormed off by herself, leaving them all behind.

Ben kept watching her as she left, ignoring the warm sensation in Tionne's finger's as she stopped the bleeding and his nose realigned with a crack. He moved to push past her the second she released him, but was stopped by a firm hold on his forearm.

His reaction was skimming violent and outraged that it didn't penetrate through Tionne's calm demeanor. "It might be best for everyone if there was space. At least until we're out of range."

Ben didn't respond, but he allowed some slack in his arm and he didn't move when Tionne let go. His former master passed by him and he followed, not allowing himself to look back. Still lying in the dark, something wisped his conscious.

_So alone_.

"Those words are of the dead." Tionne spoke immediately, she didn't even stutter in step as she continued forward. "We're not among them, so let's go."


	8. Chapter 8

Poe motioned for her to get out, his hands flipping upward in a motion to stand. 

"I'm fine. I can do it." 

"You're not." Poe remained stubborn. Their hands, which had been joined in mirror image of one another in the center console as they made the hyperspace jump, broke as Poe drew his hand back. "Take a break, A'Sharad can do it."

A'Sharad was already in the door frame, waiting for her to leave the cockpit. It was so like him to start a coup. 

Rey is too angry to argue, knowing anything that comes from her mouth would be volatile. She storms down the walkway that leads to the lounge, following the voices of Finn and Tionne who are analyzing the holocron. Another wisp brushes against her conscious, cool and even against the heat that's radiating from her own presence. She wondered if it was going stronger for him too, the connection that tethered them. He must have, even if he didn't say anything. Maybe it had always felt this way, but this was the first time she wanted the conjoined string that held them together. 

She traces him to his bunk, his presence quiet, but steady. He was laying on bunk, tissues splotched red on the floor underneath him. There was still dried blood where he smeared in near the corner of his jaw, she can only see it when he turned his head towards her. 

She licked her thumb. "Can I?"

He raised an eyebrow, but made space on the edge for her. She swipes her thumb over his jaw and rubs. He squirmed away the second she pressed a wet thumb to his cheekbone. 

"I have clean tissues."

"Afraid of a little saliva?" She tried to tease, but it came out hollow. 

"No, just don't get blood on you. It's not sanitary." A few napkins hover up from the floor and land in her lap. His hand drops back to the mattress from the half inch he raised it. 

"Oh." She replies. She took one clean square and went back to the spot, blotting it against his skin until she was satisfied the rusted stain was gone. 

He stared up at her the entire time. "I'm not mad, just so you know. It's only blood."

She swallows. "You should be. I broke your nose when you were just trying to help me."

"No, I felt it too. I was trying to ignore it, but I blocked you out in the process. I thought you were right behind me, I should have been paying attention." He says between clenched teeth. He's still angry at himself as well. 

She scoffed. "Don't blame yourself, I don't know what I was thinking, it was like-" She stopped mid-sentence and clenched her jaw, biting her tongue in the process. He knew anyways, she didn't have to say it. 

Ben let her run her fingers around his scalp, checking for any other missed spots, even though she already knew there wasn't. She almost pulls away, but he wraps his fingers around her wrist and pulls her hand gently towards his center, just under to where his ribs meet. 

"You resisted it. If you really wanted to go, you would have broke my nose and left anyways, but you didn't. You let it go, that's what's important." Ben reached with his free hand over the bone at her hip and pulls her, encouraging her to lay beside. He switched positions so they were face to face. 

"I almost didn't." Rey stammered, her vision growing blurry at her own admission. And at so much more, if anyone had been in her head, they wouldn't be treating her with this much kindness. 

Ben embraces her fully, tucking her body into his. Her eyes close slowly, forehead pressed against his chest. She falls asleep with his hands combed in her hair, flexing against her scalp and his palm steady on the small of her back.

When she wakes, it's six standard hours later. Ben is still asleep, his breath deep and long. She sit ups too quickly, rousing Ben to wakefulness in a heartbeat. 

"Relax." He groans, falling backwards into the thin padding. "You can't be needed for everything."

"It's my ship." She reiterates. A memory flashes by her of Poe telling her she's too controlling. Chewie wasn't there to cover for her either, the Wookie was just as territorial of the cockpit as she was. 

Ben makes a sound of disgruntlement. "Is there anything on this ship besides ration bars?"

Before she can roll her eyes, she realizes who he reminders her of. Sure, there are glimmers of Han stacked under years of denial and childhood trauma, but the way he looks over at her with his lips pressed in a thin line, his eyes glimmering with both amusement and opposition. Ben is so like his mother that it hurts, he wouldn't settle for less, even when it came to ration bars.

"We can go see what else there is." She says, more gently than she intends. The corner of his mouth twitches and it's too endearing for her to handle any further. He pushes himself up and then they leave together.

They end up in the kitchen, Ben is the one to lead her in there. She knew it had been a wedding gift to Han and Leia in the early years of their marriage so it shouldn't surprise her that he knows that it's the third door on the right, but it does anyways. 

There are more ration bars and the only he deems edible is a QuickSnack that had been hiding in the back of a cabinet. 

She reaches for another ration bar herself and she pulls his forward so that he doesn't dart back into the sleeping quarters. They were going to have to get this over with, one way or another. He doesn't even have his lightsaber, not that he would need it, if worse came to worse. 

Tionne and Finn are sitting almost side by side, still listening to the intoning Hologram of a women dressed in Jedi robes.

_"Whether by accident, inclination, or misdirection from others, even the most disciplined Force-user eventually steps onto the path that leads to the dark side."_

"Master Shim was tasked with researching the four stages of the Dark Side. They thought it was important to understand in order to prevent it from corrupting others." Tionne mumbled at Ben and Rey as they approached, never looking up from her own datapad. 

Ben scoffed. 

Tionne glanced up, giving Ben half of a smile. "Which in turn were used as scare tactics, a rather overzealous way of teaching." She focused back on the waiting holo. "And what of redemption? Anakin Skywalker paid for his atrocities with his life and for his son. Where is his place beyond?"

"Redemption does not exist for Darth Vader, who has crossed over. He is gone." Shim answers. 

"Pity." Tionne says. "It seems like some teachings are meant to stay in the past. Still, it's a good thesis." The hologram blinks off and Tionne hands off the datapad to Finn as the next gatekeeper's image flickers on. 

"Tell me, what do you know about Darth Revan's return to the light?" Tionne says, not directly to anybody in particular. The hologram blinks to a Twi'lek, who stands waiting in blue glow. 

"It was a kidnapping and brainwashing when I studied his reign. He was largely considered both a traitor and a icon." Ben droned. 

"You could learn a thing or two, his legacy was split between both the Light and Dark, quite literally. It's a good teaching for the future generation." Tionne sat up from off the removable paneled floor, holding a hand out in motioning for her datapad. Finn gives the sleek device back to her. 

Rey spares a glance at Tionne's retreating figure, unsure of her own place since she hadn't specified whether this was a lesson Ben should go about alone. As though he could read minds, which might not be far from the truth, he traces his hand down her forearm lightly. She takes his hand firmly in return.

Finn, who was trailing behind, leaves in a sudden hurry. 

His leaving doesn't quiet his disgruntled energy, it hovers like a dust cloud in his wake in the lounge. She shudders, trying to shake herself of it. 

Ben mumbles something incoherent under his breath. She ignores it. Folding her legs across each other, she sits down in a meditative position and focuses on the image above her. Ben mimics her position beside her. 

"Where do you want to start?" Ben asks.

"From the beginning." Rey replies. 

The Twi'lek nods and speaks. 

XXX

"Dropping out. Now." 

White starlines melt against black in steady streaks and then, in a disgruntled jolt of hyperdrive motivator rocking back, Hydian Way hyperlane is behind them and Poe steered towards the distant rust crusted planet, directed by blinking on the navicomp. 

"Interstellar radio isn't what it use to be, is it?" A'Sharad complains for the umpteenth time. 

Poe switches off the device in response, he should have done it ages ago. "Do I hear you acting your age? Be glad we even installed one, that's a new feature here. " He points at a switch above him. "The sublight engines?"

"You've got some nerve." A'Sharad taunts, reaching upward and flipping it with a single finger. He leans back and stacks his feet to rest of the dash. Poe slaps at him, hand stinging when he hits steel toes. 

"Rey will kill you." He hisses. "Then she'll kill me for letting you."

A'Sharad feet fall back to the floor, loudly. "I'd like to see that actually."

Poe huffs and maintains a warning glare before pressing down on the intercom. "Plantfall in T-minus 15." And then for reassurances, "She's going to kick you out of here, just so you know."

It's not Rey, but Finn who emerges first. Instead of strapping into the crew seating behind them as usual, he stands behind Poe and grips the Captain's headrest. "Let me do it this time, before she gets up here. I still want to learn."

"Did you not just crash your last ship? BB-8 told me all about it, he said he tried to help you, but you wouldn't listen." Poe almost laughs in disbelief. "Are you all trying to piss off Rey today?"

Footsteps echo from the corridor behind them. 

Finn falls back almost immediately and A'Sharad follows suite, grumbling the entire time it takes for him to rise and buckle into the peeling lack luster chairs. 

The buckle clicks the moment Rey slides into the empty chair at the helm. She squints at the viewpoint and then at the navicom. "This isn't Ossus." 

"Correct, this is Telos IV." Poe answers. 

"Do we have time for a pit stop?" She's confused. As far as she knew, mission accomplished with their recent discovery.

"Another trail of Tionne. She tried to explain, I didn't follow."

She nods. "Start the landing cycle then."

They land softly on the circular landing plate and a team of technicians rush at towards the Falcon before the landing ramp lowers. Poe rushes out to beat them, knowing damn well that he can fill his own tank without having to pay the extra credits. He's too late, the Gamorrean attendants are well at work, snorting at him in menacing tones. 

He can only mumble curses after he's paid the demands of a particularly brutish Gamorrean with a arg'garok strapped across his back. 

"It's interesting to see how this place has evolved." Tionne is stepping down to join him, Finn is close behind. 

"How so?" Finn asks. He's been particular to Tionne as of late, following her around at any opportunity. 

"It was nearly obliterated during the Jedi Civil War. Most of the population had been devastated until it had been restored as of recently. It was a war zone and now it's a tourist attraction for wealthy Ithorians." Tionne gleamed at the golden edged skyscrapers and glass paneled structures from where they stood on the edge of the city. 

A'Sharad passed by Poe, winking at him as he brushed his shoulder. "You ever been Swoop-racing? I could get us in if you're interesting."

He felt his face nearly light up at the mention. He had been immersed in sport as a child, begging his parents to watch on the Holonet while they were living on base. Tionne looked resigned in comparison. She opted for another topic instead. 

"I haven't seen Ransolm since he disappeared into storage. Is anyone going to wake him?"

Rey walks down the ramp, Ben trailing slightly behind her so that he is barely a few steps down by the time her feet meet the durasteel plated landing. All heads turn towards them. 

"Better yet, perhaps we should talk about this situation since Casterfo is the only one unaware of who you've brought along. Which is a terrible idea if anyone is interesting in my opinion." A'Sharad says casual. 

Rey's expression doesn't change, but her and Ben are staring at A'Sharad as though they are analyzing a potential threat. She sidesteps in line with A'Sharad's line of vision of him.

A'Sharad tries to exchange a glance with Tionne. "Skywalker didn't add me to the curriculum did he?"

"Why would he?" Tionne sounds bored. "A'Sharad Hett, former Jedi Master. What is your occupation now A'Sharad?"

A'Sharad frowned. "Besides the point. We're talking about Ben Solo." He raised an eyebrow and cocked his head. "That is your name now, right?"

Ben didn't give him the pleasure of a reply. His face remained stoic, not even entertaining blinking. Poe was realizing that this facade of expressionless was quite the opposite. 

"You wore that mask the few times you were in public, but I would recognize you from anywhere. It took me a moment, but who didn't hear about Han and Leia's kid? Your holo was everywhere." He looks for the first time, wistful. "People are writing songs about his death, wanna explain to me how he's still here?"

The technicians scamper away into the the open walkway that leads to the center station. Not even two landing stations away, a chrome luxury liner settled down clumsily and an entourage of drunk passengers stumbled down the ramp. 

Unspoken words hang in the air, what if anyone else recognizes him?

Rey's glare penetrates. "Why did you bring us if this was going to be a problem?" 

There's a sudden stillness that weight uncomfortable over them. Finn is the first to break it. "Where else was he supposed to go?"

They could have killed him the moment he set foot on Ajan Kloss. They could have imprisoned him, sent him into deep space to rot for the remainder of his days. There are so many things they could have done and it's still unspoken on the real reasoning that he was standing there, on the ramp of his father's ship. 

Rey doesn't press the issue further. She leaves it hanging stale in the air.

Poe folds his arms across his chest and shifts back from one foot to another. He's been debating how to answer this question for sometime and that means he's had time to prepare. "Ben is essential in ensuring the success of this mission. His training and the information he can provide, it's invaluable. Also," He glances at Finn. "If it isn't obvious, it isn't public knowledge that he's alive, let alone working towards a new Republic. You can guess who that would end."

A'Sharad doesn't look convinced. He lifts the prosthetic hand and lets the sleeve fall down, revealing an entire metallic bionic limb. "I remember another Jedi who said something similar. He ended up tearing the galaxy apart and I wonder if I hadn't taken pity on him, if I would have killed him instead, how many millions I would have saved?"

Ben flinches visibly. In the sudden heat of the moment, Poe and Finn both step forward, ready to act if necessary, but it turns out to be very unnecessary. 

"That's on you." Ben replies, his voice surprises them again, and saunters down the remaining few steps down the ramp. He stands next to Rey, as though she's his tether to the microscopic amount of neutrality he's able to conjure and if he'd wander any further, it would snap. 

XXX

They end up in a dingy cantina in the shifty side of Tania. 

Ransolm is still sleepy, but he's on high alert when he notices spice exchanges in the back alleys the past and that guy definitely did is not hot wiring the ignition on a landspeeder out in the open. 

He left his quarterstaff behind and has a blaster holstered on his side, but he's sorely regretting leaving it behind. 

Poe and A'Sharad slide into an empty booth, Ransolm winces at each step, his boots sticking to the floor with every step. He still doesn't know they're there, but he hopes that Poe is joking about Swoop racing. 

He orders a water. 

There is a crowd around the bar's single caged holocaster, screen cracked from years of tossed bottles and bar fights. He watches the crowd, briefly distracted before he can finally ask, "So what are we doing here?"

At that, A'Sharad scowled. "This is by far, the least organized assignment I've been on."

"You could have said something before we left."

Ransolm's politician disposition kick into full force. "Enough. Be clear, you asked me to come as an ally and I believe in this cause otherwise I wouldn't be here. But you can't keep me in the dark any longer. You can't expect that I'll believe we're just hunting holocrons at this point?"

Poe inhales sharply and looks resigned, like he knew this conversation was going to happen, but he still wasn't happy that it was happening anyways. He looks from side to side to make sure there are no eavesdroppers. "Tionne is close to finding out how a certain some learned resurrection."

"You sure he ate the dust? No reappearances?" Ransolm can't help, but blurt out. He's had his suspensions as well and his doubts that any of it wasn't even true. 

He nods. "I wasn't there, but from what I've heard it's not going to be a problem."

They've had to speak lowly, the volume of the other patrons is quiet, at times even silent. A service droid rolls around and asks for further assistance. Before the other two get the chance to wave it off, Ransolm points at the huddle, growing in numbers as the time passe. "What's going on there?"

"They're saying an old dreadnaught destroyed Centerpoint Station, Sinkhole Station is gone too." The droid intones in scattered basic. "They're calling her The Omen."


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She barely registers A'Sharad's voice. "Get her out of here."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a heads up that there is some violence in this chapter, but it's not too graphic.

  
Rey is elbow deep in a CLE-004 window cleaning droid, pulling frayed wiring and ribbon to the side with delicacy to not tear them out completely. Whoever designed the droid should be fired, the hard drive is centered in the middle, forcing her to cram two hands inside to find the latch and remove it. She can feel Finn, Tionne, and Ben's eyes steady on her, adding pressure to what should be an easy task. 

She holds her arm backwards and palm open wordlessly. 

The circuit board drops in her waiting palm and she closes it in her fist. The covering pries open easily with the flat head of her screwdriver. She switches the thin boards and fastens the case back on. She could have telekintically fasten the screws back, but she likes to do some things the old fashion way. The eavesdropping device magnetically sticks to the outside and then she slides it back into the belly of the machine. It clicks back into place easily.

BB-8 hangs out somewhere out of sight, droid maintenance makes him anxious and he bleeps with uncertainty, but she can hear him rolling up and down the cement walkway.

"Done." She closes the outer paneling. The cleaning droid whirs to life and shrills angrily at her, remembering it's kidnapping from its usual job and her forcing shutting it off as it panicked to wheel out of her grip. 

She stands and steps away, avoiding the disgruntled droid who scurries off and slinks out of the alleyway where they had hid out of sight. Tionne is already on her datapad, taping at the screen. The droid freezes before it reaches the streets where it would have been programmed to turn right and continue washing windows to a sleek black skyscraper, and turns left. 

"He's going, nice job." Finn praises her. She grins up at him. 

"I've given him directions back here afterward. It should be an easy switch back and then we can head back for the day." Tionne says. She slides the datapad back in her satchel and pulls her hood further down to block the sun from her eyes.

"And until then?" Rey asks, sitting up on her knees and standing. 

"We wait for the others." Tionne says. 

XXX

Ransolm's years in the senate had resulted in a few fine-tuned skills that might have been considered unsavory. Eavesdropping wasn't the worst sin, considering. 

Poe and A'Sharad exchange in casual conversation that he's paying absolutely no attention too, but they must look unsuspecting because two bounty hunters slide into the booth behind them. 

Poe dodges a glance at him. Ransolm flattened his mouth and raised his eyebrows, gaving one short shake of his head out of annoyance. Of course he was paying attention, he didn't need Poe to remind him.

"-lost credits for that. Someone's going to have to pay me." The bounty hunter sitting directly behind him shifts and Ransolm can feel it through the thin backrest that they share. 

His masked comrade across huffs a laugh. "You'll have to scavenge whatever is floating through space for that to happen. Your credits are there somewhere"

Ransolm flinches at the sound of a dagger embedding itself into the wooden table behind him. A'Sharad crooks an eyebrow at him in a silent command to keep it together.

The bounty hunters continue their discussion, but it's not the information that they came there for. They continue to rant about Shatterpoint station and the mass causalities of prisoners aboard, complaining that their frequent customers of soon-to-be released inmates were lost income. Ransolm shakes his head and nods his head towards the exit. "We're going to be late."

Poe tugs his deerstalker down over the curls that escape over his forehead. "Give it another minute."

"Far left side at the bar. That's got to be him." A'Sharad said in low tones.

Ransolm lets himself briefly look over at a single man hunched over the bar. "Huh, I didn't even notice him."

A'Sharad took a long drink and leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table, holding his glass so that it covered his mouth from the side. "Jedi tricks."

"So what do we do?"

As though on cue, the hooded man slides his chair back and moves to leave. 

"Go." Poe urges, hastily sliding out of the booth. A'Sharad moves quickly to follow behind. Cursing, Ransolm slides his quarterstaff that rested behind him and slide it into the holding slung across his back. 

It was blindingly bright outside compared to the darkness inside the cantina and Ransolm had to blink a few times to adjust his eyes before he realized that their target wasn't there anymore.

Poe points left, down the narrow obsidian street that led back towards the desert outback out of the city. "We'll better our chances if we separate."

A'Sharad crooks his head as though he's listening for something that Ransolm couldn't hear. After a moment, he shakes his head. "No. He's gone."

"He just left, he couldn't have gotten far." Poe argues, rocking forward on his toes. 

A movement behind him made Ransolm turn his head slightly. "It's going to have to wait." Ransolm gritted out, drawing his quarterstaff from behind him. 

Poe and A'Sharad stiffened a turned abruptly. Behind them, a group of raiders, heads wrapped in thick clothes and eyes covered with black lens goggles, march towards them. When they make eye contact, the raiders draw their blasters and fire. 

A'Sharad steps forward and swings a metal rod forward, emerald plasma igniting from the hilt and deflecting red blaster bolts. 

"Go." He urges and swings the lightsaber in a circle motion and points it down the adjacent street and then draws it back in a side ways arc in front of his body. 

Ransolm doesn't need further encouragement. He turns on his heels and runs towards the desert plains. Poe quick behind him drawing his blaster and shooting behind him. Ransolm reaches for his comlink and holds it up to his mouth, panting as he gasps into it. 

xxx

"We've gotta go." Finn shoves the comlink in his pocket and runs. Rey barely caught what location Ransolm had been yelling, but Finn seemed to know where he was going. She wondered if he had studied the layout of the city before they arrived and feels ashamed that she hadn't, landing on the unfamiliar planet completely blind. 

They enter battle the second they step out of the city and into the desert wastelands that edge the populous of Telos. In a contrast to the metal spine skyscrappers that stick upward into the clouds, the city stops development where the sidewalks ends. Homes compromised as makeshift panel walls and straw thatched roofs line the sand laden landscape, stacked on top of each other and falling apart. Homelessness isn't a problem inside the city because they shove it just outside, like dust under a rug. 

They hear the sound of blaster fire and the shrill cries of innocent civilians running at them, flinging themselves through open windows and doors. Rey sprints forward against the crowd. 

She hears Poe before she sees him and tries to focus on his signature, although it's hard to distinguish from the panic flowing through the air around them.

Ransolm darts from between two shacks and fires rapidly before ducking back into the alley. 

Surveying the area, Rey breaks away and grips the hilt of her lightsaber, thumbing the rotating gear until amber ignites. To her side where Ben was standing, a similar noise hums. 

They charge into an open expansion of golden dunes at the same time, Rey taking the left and Ben taking the right, both of their backs facing each other in a protective stance that feels bitterly familiar. This time, they aren't in a dreadnought with red banner falling in caught fire around them, the wind is blowing fiercely so that the sand stings at her skin that isn't protected in wraps. 

He is dancing, every step he takes is a rhythm that she knows and she knows well. 

The difference in how he swings his saber, how he parries blaster bolts, is astronomically different compared to his usual style of fighting. He starts out with Soresu, a defensive form of battle, and counter strikes in fluid motion, keeping movement quick and tight to his center. His forehead shinny from a thin layer of sweat that is the only indication that his heart rate is anything above resting. Rey thinks she sees him engaging in breathing exercises while he ricochets a bolt against his lightsaber, angling the beam of plasma downward into the sand. 

He swings sideways at a wooden barrel and his off hand pushes outward, causing the container brim full of horned melon to fly at his enemies running towards him from the north. This tactic isn't made to seriously harm, but to annoy and maybe ward them off for a few more moments. A few of them fall when the melon bludgeons them, another few move to dodge and end up getting hit by another projectile. 

He inhales.

In the same motion, he steps lightly and dunks under the phasma of a staff that barely touches the tip of his hair, swinging from raider that comes from behind. His left leg swings out and he whirls in a tight circle, kicking out his attackers knees and in the same motion, driving his saber into their chest as he stands back up. 

One of the raiders kicks up sand into his face and she can feel glimpse of rage pierce the air around her. With his off hand, he summons the blaster out of the raiders hand and slices the incoming weapon in midair with a little more aggression than necessary, he puts the brute force of his entire arm in a upwards stroke. 

He exhales.

  
More masked attackers abandoned Rey to go aid their comrades because Ben is razing his opponents into dust and looks entirely too comfortable in doing so. She thrusts her lightsaber into the chest of a retreating enemy who was drawing a crossbow from him to her. 

A'Sharad had joined them at some point and she leaves him in an unspoken agreement as she moves to cover Ransolm and Poe's back as they move on the outskirts of the feud, ducking behind durasteel scraps. 

That's when she notices A'Sharad fighting beside Ben. They move similarly, using each other as a advantage. As A'Sharad slices through the stomach of one raider, he pushes another who swings at him from his opposite towards Ben, who swings in a wide arc upward and the raider falls dead into the sand. They go back and forth like loth cats playing with their food. 

She is busy with her own problems, but it takes immense focus to not gawk. Poe, on the other hand, cannot get himself to stop staring. She frantically force pushes an enemy who had been coming up from his blind spot, using more power than intended. The enemy flies off the edge of the dune and tumbles down the sandbanks.

Ransolm, who wields a quarterstaff, has her back. He isn't as skilled, but he does the job adequately, knocking out any charging assailants that try to sneak up from her side. She isn't too worried about him because so far, he has handled himself, so when he cries out and falls back into her, she's caught completely off guard. She tries to roll onto her shoulder and not extending her arm to catch herself, remembering in the split second that it counts that she can't afford to break a bone right now. 

They fall in slow motion. She is pressed into the ground, trying to roll Ransolm's dead weight off of her so she can face his opponent before he can take advantage of having the upper hand. She can only give the him a quick glance over to reassure herself that he's still alive as she rolls on her knees. He's out cold, but breathing. 

She can't see her opponents face, it's wrapped in cloth and bandaged down his neck to hide his appearance and they wear black lenses googles to protect their eyes from the sun and the sand. She had once too, in another life. Armed with a concussion rifle, the raider lifts the weapon and turns a nob on the side towards him. Rey knows there is no chance her lightsaber can deflect the sonic weapon, that's why it was a favorite among bounty hunters. If the last blast at knocked Ransolm out, a more powerful bolt of sonic energy could be lethal. She moves faster than she's every moved when he aims the barrel in her center and begins to press his finger back. 

  
Her focus is too attuned to the enemy in front of her and protecting Ransolm that she doesn't sense Ben approach until she feels a not-so-gentle push that reminds her of a wild gust from behind, and tumbles forward back to the ground. 

Her attacker moves the barrel away from her towards another target that steps in front of her and fires. Ben wouldn't have had enough time to move, his wrist barely twitches in time to catch the sonic blast that tears through the plasma of his lightsaber and hits him directly in the chest. 

He crumbles. His knees give out and his body jerks backwards, away from her, succumbing to gravity and _she's seen this before_. 

As though he realizes the magnitude of his mistake, the raider flees and disappears into an open door of a shanty house. She isn't sure exactly what is happening, but she feels intent burning in her core. Later on, when she is reanalyzing every second that lead up to it, only one thing she know's is undeniably true, she means for this to happen. One of the burn barrels ignites in a fiery bloom and lick against the sidings of the home, flames flickering into the cracked sides of the deteriorating walls. Fire catches on the hatch roof easily and the sky crackles in the heat of the blaze. 

Seconds pass, maybe minutes, hours for all she knows. Everything else is far away and distant compared except the fire in front of her. She faintly feels fingers against the edge of her elbow. 

"Rey?" 

Poe's fingers grip. His voice is small and distressed, a sound that is unfamiliar coming from him, piercing through the world that blurred around the edges. "What did you do?"

She blinks and reality audibly clicks back into focus. The red haze lifts from her eyes and she is jerked into a cataclysmic scene. There are no more raiders, only scattered corpses already half buried in the sand. The entire neighborhood, rows and rows of half built shanty homes, is on fire. 

Poe's arm grips her forearm and he drags her backward. She lets him, mostly because she is completely frozen in her own panic. His words reverberate inside her head and she can't clear them away to gain her own understanding of what's happening in front of her. A'Sharad's head snaps towards her, looking at her with utter disbelief.

There is a crashing noise that unparalyzed her. She looks away from the fiery destruction to the top of a water tower being ripped out of the ground. Ben's forehead is sheer with sweat, his countenance entirely focused, and when he opens his eyes, there is an cities worth of water floating above him. The water rolls forward in a wave and crashes over the flames, extinguishing most of fire. Not enough, not nearly enough. 

The entire roadway is littered with families, some running out of the nearby buildings and some running into the black smoke. Some are throwing buckets of sands onto the remaining flames in a feeble attempt to save their homes. 

All Rey can do is stare on in horror.

"We have to help." She says in a voice that is distant from herself, that must be coming from the mouth of someone else.

She barely registers A'Sharad's voice. "Get her out of here."


End file.
